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The latest update as of July 6, 2025

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - Twisted Shifterz Summer Nationals - Cordova Dragway

This is the opening "salvo" of the second qualifying session at the recently (sort of) completed Funny Car Chaos event at Cordova Dragway. We're just starting to work on the Friday fotos from the race, but all of Saturday's pictures and most of the captions and reports are already posted in the Features section of this website. Go here to see the race report.

Yet another update from the IHRA FB page. They now have a full field of 8 drivers entered in Top Fuel. Latest to be confirmed is Will Smith, driving Luigi Novelli's "National Machine Repair" car. Shortly after, Jody Austin in the "Bushwhacker" nitro funny car was announced as entered on the IHRA FB page. That brings the total confirmed entries in Funny Car to SIX. Stay tuned for more updates as the clock strikes midnight tonight for the pre-entry list.

The latest update as of July 5, 2025

IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series entries for season opener keep growing

While the IHRA Facebook page is a little slower with the news than Competition Plus or Funny Car Chaos, they are in sync as of this morning. The latest additions to the ever-growing list now includes Cameron Ferre (not sure who's car he's driving), Doug Foley, and Mitch King. According to the Funny Car Chaos Facebook page, Chuck Loftin is entered. Again, we're not sure which car he's piloting. That brings the Top Fuel pre-entries to six, including the earlier ones: Scott Palmer and Krista Baldwin. A little more sleuthing through Facebook pages revealed that Canadian Kyle Satenstein will be entered, driving the Leverich Family dragster.

Nitro Funny Car is really getting crowded if all the announcements from FCC about their racers entering turn out to be correct. Racer entries already posted on the IHRA FB page are Dale Creasy Jr., Jack Wyatt, Terry Haddock, Dave Gallegos, and Joey Haas. Competition Plus is listing Del Worhsam, Mike McIntire Jr., Jody Austin, and either Tod or Alex Barker. All in all, it adds up to NINE possible/probably entries in Funny Car, and FIVE in Top Fuel.

UPDATE #1: We just re-read the Competition Plus story from earlier in the week and we missed two names from the Top Fuel list (they have not yet been confirmed by IHRA). Competing with his own car is Lex Joon, and driving the Luigi Novellia entry is Will Smith, who just missed qualifying at Norwalk. Both racers ran in the 3-second zone at that event, by the way. That brings the (un)confirmed Top Fuel entry list to SEVEN racers.

UPDATE #2:It's now been confirmed via a new posting on the IHRA Facebook page that Chuck Loftin and Lex Joon are now officially entered in the National Trail Raceway event. That makes a confirmed total of SEVEN entries in Top Fuel.

While there may be full or nearly full fields in the nitro categories, so far Pro Mod has just four racers confirmed, while Top Alcohol has just one dragster and one funny car on the official list. Both the alky entrants are NHRA World Champions, but with a $7500 to win, and $2000 to qualify purse on offer (more than NHRA pays), there should be quite a few entries added before Sunday night's deadline. The final entry lists will be announced on Monday, July 7th. Stay tuned for that!

The latest update as of July 4, 2025

HAPPY BIRTHDAY U.S.A.

July 4, 1776 - July 4, 2025 - 249 YEARS

The latest update as of July 3, 2025

Sad news as the passing of Jerry "The King" Ruth is annnounced

There's too many of these in memoriam announcements coming out these days. At times it seems like all my heroes are dying or have already passed. And now, here comes another one. The number of stories and recollections and anecdotes showing up everywhere, on websites and Facebook, are frankly incredible. All good memories and some great photos. While I didn't have a camera handy when I watched Jerry racing back in the 70's and early 80's, I've got some indelible memories of seeing him at my first drag race, at the old Mission Raceway in June of 1972.

Ruth went up against a tough field of Canadian and American racers, and came out on top with best numbers of the WCS (World Cham,pionship Series) meet with incredible (for the time) numbers, highlighted by his final round 6.20 - 235.00 winning pass against "Gentleman" Hank Johnson. At the time, Jerry was running the dragster and a Funny Car, and despite setting low e.t. and top speed in the flopper during qualifying, he fell to Twig Zeigler in the semi-final to end his string of double duty victories.

Throughout the 70's I saw him race at Mission, Bremerton, and Seattle during what seemed to me like the "golden age" of drag racing. In the early 2000's I saw him with his cackle car at the Northwest Nationals, saw him helping Mark Hentges with a short-lived sojourn into an injected nitro combo that was quickly shelved, and enjoyed reminiscing about his exploits through old National Dragsters, videos, and Facebook postings.

Sadly, Jerry Ruth's time passed on July 1st, but we have many, many happy memories that will stay with us forever. R.I.P. Jerry "The King" Ruth.

The latest update as of July 2, 2025

The NHRA national event schedule has a two week break between events before the (abbreviated) "Western Swing", which could be more accurately renamed the "West Coast Swing". After back-to-back races at Seattle and Sonoma, there is another two week break before the final two events of the "regular" season, starting in Brainerd, MN and concluding at Indianapolis, IN for the 71st edition of the "Big GO", aka the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals.

So where does the IHRA Nitro Outlaw Series fit into this scenario? With no NHRA national event next weekend, the first of five Nitro Outlaw National events on the IHRA schedule won't have any competition for racers or spectators. And when the second event, at Milan, MI runs at the end of this month, the NHRA tour will be on the West Coast. Again, good timing for the IHRA. The only race on their calendar that conflicts with an NHRA event is in late September at Dragway 42 in West Salem, OH while the NHRA is at St. Louis for the Midwest Nationals, just 500 miles away.

The announced entries for the PRO classes at the National Trail Raceway event are rather slim so far, with only two Top Fuel racers, Scott Palmer and Krista Baldwin on the list. Today a third Funny Car showed up - hold on a fourth racer just appeared on the IHRA Facebook page, with Dave Gallegos, Terry Haddock, Jack Wyatt, and Dale Creasy Jr. all ready to compete for the $50,000 winner's purse. The payout for runnerup is a generous $25,000, while semfinalists receive $20,000 and first round losers still garner a solid $15,000. In addition, there is a $7,500 payout for each of the first four alternates. If those numbers don't capture people's attention, then they're simply not... paying attention.

In other categories, just one Top Alcohol Dragster, Megan Meyer is entered, while four Pro Mod racers are on the list: Frankie "Mad Man" Taylor, Zach Sackman, Chris Cline, and Craig Sullivan. The Pro Mod racers will also be competing for a $50,000 winners purse, but runnerup "only" pays $10K, and the numbers drop to just $1,500 for first round losers in the 32-car field. Of interest is that they will be running 1/8-th mile, while the nitro cars will be going 1000' and the Top Alcohol racers the full quarter mile.

Any fuel racers that aren't heavily sponsored or realistically challenging for event wins should be seriously looking at running with IHRA, especially when their events aren't competing with the NHRA. Racers that fill the bottom of the field at an NHRA race or have trouble qualifying for those races should bring their cars to events where they don't have to compete with the mega-buck racers at the top of the "food chain". And for racers that are still trying to sort out their equipment and get on top of tuneups, the IHRA events are a great place to learn how to make competitive runs on decent tracks with much less pressure than at the "Big Show" races.

Racers like Joe Morrison, Scott Farley, Cameron Ferre, Terry Totten, Mike McIntire Jr., Chris King, Jim Campbell, Smax Smith, Phil Burkart, Rit Pustari all could benefit by getting some track time and going home with a decent paycheck. And the teams that have shown 3-second potential or visited that rarified zone, like Lex Joon, Kyle Wurtzel, Will Smith, Todd Paton, et al, can likewise benefit from making more passes and refining what they already have shown at the NHRA races. Note that all of the racers listed above reside in the eastern half of the continent and wouldn't have to travel very far to attend the Outlaw Series events.

With nine days to go before qualifying starts at Columbus, we're looking forward to seeing just how many racers throw their hats in the ring and make the trek to National Trail. We'll keep updating the entries on this page as they are announced.

UPDATE: Two more entries have rolled in, both funny cars, one burning methanol and the other one on nitro. The first Top Alcohol Funny Car entered is Sean Bellemeur, the four-time and defending NHRA World Champion. He's the highest profile racer to throw his helmet in the ring for the Outlaw Nitro Series. The fifth nitro funny car racer to join in is Joey Haas, familiar to Funny Car Chaos and Nitro Chaos fans. He's brining the "Nimrod" AA/FC to a bigger stage for the first time and based on his results in FCC events, should be very competitive.

The latest update as of July 1, 2025

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CANADA!

July 1, 1867 - July 1, 2025 - 158 YEARS

The latest update as of June 29, 2025

Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals - Norwalk, OH

NOON Update:

It's going to be an all-Canadian final round in Top Alcohol Dragster at Norwalk. While one of the finalists, McKenna Bold is driving an American (Randy Meyer Racing) car, she hails from Red Deer, Alberta. Facing her is the defending World Champion, Shawn Cowie, from Langley, British Columbia. While Bold has lane choice with a 5.284 - 273.61 that defeated Jamie Noonan in the semifinals, Cowie wasn't that much slower, with a 5.336 - 273.16 enroute to an easy win over a tire smoking Kirk Wolf.

In Top Alcohol Funny Car it looks like deja vu "all over again", as California neighbours and close friends, Shane Westerfield, and Sean Bellemeur, will face off in the final round at Norwalk. Both are multo-time World Champions, Westerfield twice and Bellemeur four times. Lane choice was decided definitively when Westerfield smoked the tires on his bye run in the semifinals, while Bellemeur ran another in a string of 5.50's, with a 5.516 - 263.51 coming up on the timers.

2:00 PM Update:

Let's start the final report from Norwalk with the Funny Cars. It was a close race with two evenly matched cars, but the winlight flashed in Sean Bellemeur's lane, as the "Killer B's" racked up their 45th national event win with Bellemeur at the tiller. The numbers were close, with Bellemeur's 5.544 - 261.93 edging out Westerfield's 5.575 - 262.33 effort. The reaction times favoured Westerfield by only .003, with both drivers carding very quick .033 to .036 clockings, making for a margin of half a car length at the finish line. With the win, Bellemeur took over the points lead, 42 markers ahead of Maddi Gordon, who lost in the second round of eliminations.

The final round in Top Alcohol Dragster wasn't quite as close as McKenna Bold steeamrolled her way to the winners circle, leaving first by half a tenth (.045 to .100), and running slightly quicker to the finish line, stopping the clocks with a time. Her opponent, Shawn Cowie trailed with a close (on paper) 5.321 - 273.39, but the reaction time difference told the tale. The win for Ms. Bold was her first national victory in TAD, in her first final round appearance in her rookie season. Quite a start for her behind the wheel of a Randy Meyer team car, and the points elevated her to the #7 spot in the national standings.

Cowie's runnerup finish allowed him to close the gap on the points leader, Matt Cummings, who's now just 62 points ahead of Cowie, while Shawn has run two fewer national events than Cummings. With the "Mundie's Towing" team now heading back to their homebase and not have to venture further afield than Woodburn, OR and Seattle, WA over the next six weeks, Cowie could take over the lead in the national standings with some good results at the two West Regionals (Woodburn and Seattle) and the Muckleshoot Casino Resort NHRA Northwest Nationals at Seattle. Stay tuned for more reports on their progress.

The latest update as of June 28, 2025

Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals - Norwalk, OH and FCC Tulsa Nitro Nationals - Tulsa, OK

Both events were affected - to varying degrees by weather (i.e. rain) yesterday, with Norwalk losing an hour or two due to the wet stuff. But it was a different story in Tulsa, where heavy rain ' and wind blew through the track just before qualifying started, and washed out the evening's activities. Both tracks started the day with rain, but Tulsa's was much heavier and more persistent, resulting in the cancellation of racing for the weekend. This is now the second postponement of the event and has thrown another monkey wrench into the Funny Car Chaos schedule.

UPDATE:: It's been officially announced that the Tulsa Nitro Nationals will NOT be rescheduled this year and has been dropped from the schedule.

It was a happier story in Norwalk, with racing starting a couple of hours late and good weather in the forecast for the balance of the day. After track drying and prep were completed, the Top Alcohol Dragsters ran their third (final) qualifying session, and the results were impressive. The round started with a rather weak 5.526 bump spot for the 19 cars in attendance, but that changed in a hurry, as the first five pairs going down the track kept lowering the bump spot until it ended with Tom Fox Jr. on the bubble with a much better 5.408 elapsed time.

The final pair of dragster qualifying saw the first 5-teen of the weekend, with Canadian McKenna Bold, in a Randy Meyer car, laying down a very quick 5.180 - 273.83 to jump to the top of the field, seven hundredths ahead of the #2 and #3 qualifiers. Occupying that #3 spot was Shawn Cowie, who fell just short of bettering his 5.258 of Friday, stopping the clocks in this session at 5.275. Two other Canadian cars qualified, both from Manitoba, and both with American drivers, as Greg Hunter (in the Doug Doucette car) posted a 5.245 that elevated him to the #2 spot, while Todd Bruce (in the Cliff Bakx car) couldn't better his Friday best of 5.308, leaving him in the #9 spot going into eliminations.

The latest update as of June 27, 2025

19th annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals - Norwalk, OH

When you have 9 of the top 10 Top Alcohol Dragsters in the current points standings in attendance, you've got the makings of one heck of an event. The weather conditions are just okay, with density altitude readings over 3500 ft for the first qualifying session for the blown alky cars. The 12 Funny Cars almost all got down the track in good order, with the top 8 of them in the 5.60's or better, led by multi-time and reigning world champion Sean Bellemeur with a 5.541 - 262.39 pass. On the dragster side, there were several tire smoking runs, one fail to fire, and at the top were two Canadian drivers.

Leading the way was Top Alcohol rookie McKenna Bold (Red Deer, AB) in a Randy Meyer team car, with a very strong 5.256- 268.17Shawn Cowie (Langley, BC) with a great 5.258 - 274.83 effort. With one more qualifying session later today, and one tomorrow morning, they're both off to a good start for the event.

More news from Norwalk this evening. And some Tulsa Nitro Nationals news too. Look for it!

The latest update as of June 25, 2025

IHRA Outlaw Series Announcements

It's only two weeks until the first of five planned IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series events kicks off at Hebron, OH's National Trail Raceway. After nearly six months of announcements, retractions, hirings, firings, and seemingly never-ending changes, the newest iteration of the International Hot Rod Association is on the verge of kicking off the first major event on their 2025 calendar. With $205,000 in purse money for Top Fuel and Funny Car, they are taking a serious shot at attracting some mid-range or higher fuel racers.

Additionally, there is a total of $507,000 offered for a total of 17 sportsman categories, ranging from Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car to Pro Mod, Pro Nitrous, Pro Stock, Mountain Motor Pro Stock, Nitro Harley, Top Dragster and Sportsman, Super Stock, Factory Stock, Stock, Hemi Shootout, Quick, Super, and Hot Rod, and of course, Snowmobiles.

That makes a grand total of $917,000 in purse money to be paid to a total of 298 racers. If all the fields are filled, plus 2 to 4 alternates for some classes, a total of approx. $105,000 in entry fees would be collected. Assuming that the lower sportsman classes will be oversubscribed, there might be as much as $120,000 in total entry fees. That's not much of a down payment on the huge purses offered to Top Fuel ($205,000), Funny Car ($205,000), Pro Mod ($120,000) and Pro Nitrous ($45,000), which total up to $575,000 alone.

With the most expensive spectator ticket being $100 for a 4-day pass, or $20 for Wednesday, Thursday (sportsman only) and $40 for Friday and Saturday (Pros), they're going to need an awful lot of fans to occupy the grandstands at National Trail.

On the IHRA Facebook page yesterday I saw the first two Top Fuel entries that have committed to the entire series, Scott Palmer and Krista Baldwin, plus the first Funny Car to join the party, Dale Creasy Jr.. Additionally, two Pro Mods have entered the first event at National Trail, Frankie "Mad Man" Taylor and Craig Sullivan. That's only five racers so far, but with two weeks to go before qualifying starts at the first event, we expect to see a steady stream of entries flowing in, especially for the $50K to win in Pro Mod. Stay tuned for updates.

Next up on our agenda is the fourth race on the FUNNY CAR CHAOS schedule, the Tulsa Nitro Nationals at Tulsa Raceway Park. Our Arizona photographer, BIG Bob Snyder is already enroute to the event as this is being written. We'll have all the photos and reports up over the weekend. After that we've got our Colorado correspondent, Dale Fackler hitting the road to the Nitro Chaos race at (Smoklin') Mo-Kan Dragway in mid-July. Looks like it's going to be a busy summer for Bob and Dale, and of course, myself (Bobby Thunder).

The latest update as of June 23, 2025

Mid-Afternoon Update:

It's been a busy few weeks in the world of drag racing, and especially busy here for us here at Northern Thunder Drag Racing. We not only attended and reported on the recent Mission Raceway Park NHRA Division Six National Open, we've been inundated with photos from the latest two Funny Car Chaos events, at Eddyville, IA and Cordova, IL. And it doesn't stop there as this week the Chaos tour continues with event #4 on their 2025 schedule (originally #2 on the calendar) at Tulsa Raceway Park. The Tulsa Nitro Nationals will see our Arizona photographer and correspondent, BIG Bob Snyder in attendance and capturing all the action for us.

NHRA Pro disqualifications

In other news, it's just been reported that Shawn Langdon's event winning run in Top Fuel at the American Rebel Virginia NHRA Nationals was disqualified due to a technical rules violation. That made event runner-up Justin Ashley the winner. The violation by the Kalitta Air team was some missing bolts on the bellhousing's inspection cover. Not all of the 12 bolts required were on the cover after the run. The team issued a statement explaining what happened and accepted the disqualification without reservation.

"Some of the bolts rattled loose during the run and fell into the belly pan," said Chad Head, General Manager of Kalitta Motorsports. "The bolts were in place before the run, but some were not in place after because they came loose and fell into the belly pan. That's on us."

This latest disqualification comes on the heels of the Erica Enders disqualification, and hefty points and cash penalty levied following the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals. At the same race, Canadian Pro Mod racer, and 2024 World Champion, Jordan Lazic was disqualified during eliminations and fined for having his fire bottle pinned (inoperative) following his round one win. Later in the event, there was a physical altercation between two teams (Elite Motorsports and KB-Titan Racing) that led to warnings about "unsportsmanlike conduct". That announcement ended with the threat of disciplinary action if future altercations occur.

Confirmation of Scrappers Racing "hiatus"

We're only halfway through the 2025 NHRA season and there's definitely some heated action taking place, on and off the track as we head into the hottest part of the season. On a more somber note, it's not been officially announced, but the Scrappers Racing team Top Fuel is parked - possibly permanently - as their crew chief Rob Flynn announced that he's been hired to tune Tony Schumacher as a teammate with Clay Millican for the Rick Ware Racing team. Here's the official word from Flynn:

Speaking on the starting line before Saturday's third and final qualifying session for the American Rebel Light Virginia NHRA Nationals, Flynn, who started the season with Mike Salinas' Scrappers Racing team tuning for Jasmine Salinas before it was parked, corroborated rumors that had been flying for weeks.

"Obviously, I wasn't looking to change jobs, but when the Salinas family quit racing for this year, I wasn't ready to retire, so I started looking around," he said. "The job right now that is out there is with Tony Schumacher and Rick Ware Racing".

Top Alcohol Dragsters at Norwalk's Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals

On a brighter note, "local hero" Shawn Cowie is now #2 in the Top Alcohol Dragster points standings following his victory at the West Region (National Open) event at Mission Raceway Park a week ago. He only trails Matt Cummings, who added to his tally with a semi-final finish at last weekend's North Central Region event at Norwalk. While Cummings is 84 points ahead of Cowie, he has run two more national events than Shawn. That sets up what could be a pivotal event for those two racers this coming weekend at Norwalk's Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals, as they are both entered in what is shaping up to be a very tough field. Of the 19 entries, only four are running blown alcohol, and a virtual "murderer's row" of injected nitro nasties are on the list.

Among the A/Fuel hitters on the entry list are the Randy Meyer Racing entries of McKenna Bold and Matt Cummings, the McPhillips Racing teammates Melanie Johnson and Anthony Troyer, and Samsel Racing with Jamie Noonan in the seat. In addition, and certainly not to be overlooked are perennial championship contender, Jackie Fricke from New Jersey, Madison Payne from California, and Texan Kirk Wolf in the Dean Dubbin entry.

All are capable of winning at any event they attend. The latest weather forecast calls for possible thunderstorms Friday and Saturday and temperatures ranging from 75 (F) to 85 (F) with relatively high humidity. Those conditions might favour the injected cars and give the Mundie's Towing team (Shawn Cowie) a serious challenge after low altitude, moderate temperatures for their past few events.

The latest update as of June 22, 2025

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - Twisted Shifterz Summer Nationals - Cordova Dragway

We posted the final rounds and winner circle pics in yesterday's update, so now it's time to start at the beginning - the beginning of eliminations, kicking things off with the "A" field on a warm Saturday night at Cordova Dragway.

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "A" Field - Eliminations Round ONE

With the grandstands full and everyone standing it was time for the national anthem before the first pair fired up to open eliminations.

(LEFT) Choosing to run first was top qualifier Dave Hirata (far lane) in Tom Motry's "Drastic Plastic" nitro burner, paired up against the always dangerous Keith Zimmerer (near lane). With ace tuner Will Hanna calling the shots, Zimmerer qualified in the #5 rung on the ladder, only half a tenth slower than Hirata. Zimmerer launched first, with an .-029 to .100 reaction time advantage.

(RIGHT) Leaving second at a seven hundredths disadvantage, Hirata failed to close the gap before the 1/8-th mile finish line. Despite clocking in at an excellent 3.713 - 214.52, he was two car lengths behind at the stripe as Zimmerer stopped the clocks with low e.t. of eliminations 3.692 - 205.26, while Hirata notched top speed of eliminations with his 214+ mph speed.

Looks like only one car, that of Jesse Clark in his "No Name" entry in this pair of photos. Scheduled opponent Ray Drew in the Mustang-bodied "Cobra" wasn't able to make the call and with no replacement for him waiting in the wings, Clark took a free ride into the semifinals. He ran strong for a few hundred feet before clicking it off early to a 4.183 - 135.01 timeslip, well off his #8 qualifying 3.778 - 203.89 numbers.

(LEFT) The Williams Brothers racing team "200 Proof Top Alcohol car, driven by Kirk Williams only qualified in the #7 spot, well down from his usual position near the top of the ladder. After a Funny Car Chaos series championship in 2022, preceded by second place in 2021, and back-to-back second placings in 2023 and 2024, he was looking to move up in this year's standings.

(RIGHT) Facing Williams was the defending series champion Shayne Lawson in the Mustang-bodied "Man O' War" entry in the far lane. With tuning help from Ken Singleton they finished qualifying in the #3 slot but ran into trouble early in the run and stopped on the track before the finish line. Taking the easy win was Williams (near lane) with a strong 3.834 - 202.73 to advance to the second round.

(LEFT) Making quite a name for himself in his first season on the FCC circuit has been Brian Lewis in the brand-new "Grumpy 2" entry. He runner-upped at the season opener at the Texas Motorplex and entered eliminations here from the #6 spot on the ladder, courtesy of a strong 3.741 - 199.58 qualifying effort.

(RIGHT) Lining up in the near lane against veteran Chuck Loftin (far lane) in the "Motivation" Mustang, Lewis left first by nearly a tenth and a half (.012 to .157 r.t.'s), and outran Loftin all the way to the finish line. Lewis' scoreboard read 3.734 - 205.85 while Loftin trailed with a solid, but losing 3.927 - 169.27. The e.t's could have been closer if Loftin hadn't pulled the chutes early.

Here's a closer look at Chuck Loftin launching hard with the slicks wadding up and propelling the 'Stang down track.

The first round ended with pairings for the semis seeing Brian Lewis taking his choice of lanes over Jesse Clark, and Keith Zimmerer choosing over Kirk Williams.

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "B" Field - Eliminations Round ONE

With the index rule in effect, it was set at .15 seconds quicker than the top qualifier in the field. That was Bill Bernard, who ran 3.783 to set the index at a very quick 3.63.

(LEFT) Leading off the "B" field eliminations was series regular Chris "The Butcher" Schneider in the Trxoxel & Schneider "Brutus" Mustang. The Lew Arrington tribute car qualified #15 overall with a solid 4.135 - 173.76 pass in the final qualifying session.

(RIGHT) Facing Schneider was one of the most iconic cars in the history of funny car racing, the (in)famous "Chi-Town Hustler", with third generation driver Mike Minick at the controls. Following in the footsteps of grandfather Pat Minick in the original iteration of the car in 1967, and father Wayne Minick who drove in the 1980's, Mike is still doing massive burnouts that are the signature trademark of the Hustler.

(LEFT) On the green, Chris Schneider in the far lane took a reaction time advantage of half a tenth before running into trouble and shutting off to a 6.939 at 66.10 mph. In the near lane, Mike Minick pounded out a strong 3.897 - 204.88, quicker than his 3.914 qualifying time and easily advanced to the semifinal round.

(RIGHT) Here's a closer look at the Hustler, hooked up and charging down track.

(LEFT) Despite a sub-par qualifying result that saw the "Executioner" land in the #25 spot and out of the show, Justin Herbst got a reprieve when Casey Geeslin announced that the "Gambler" was unable to make repairs after qualifying. It was quite a jump from #25 to the #12 position in the middle of the "B" field.

(RIGHT) Making his debut in FCC competition, Bobby Martin wheeled the aptly named Dodge Charger bodied "Super Charger" through a strong burnout before facing Herbst. He qualified at the bottom of the "B" field with a very respectable 4.169 - 182.53 pass that indicated some serious potential for the newcomer.

(LEFT) The race was over before it started, as you can clearly see with the big redlight glowing in the far lane for Justin Herbst, negating his consistent 4.531 - 156.43 effort. Bobby Martin, on the other hand, had a rather slow reaction time (.155) but easily passed Herbst with a winning 4.249 - 163.53 clocking.

(RIGHT) Another view of Martin as the "Super Charger" hooks up and charges towards the finish line.

(LEFT) The top qualifier in the "B" field, Bill Bernard smoked the tires hard on the burnout in "The Grinder". He laid down an excellent 3.783 - 201.73 best in qualifying and could still go quicker without worrying about going under the index.

(RIGHT) Bernard's opponent, Steve Timoszyk in the very familiar Monza-bodied "Detroit Tiger" broke into the 3-second zone in qualifying with a very strong 3.991 at only 170.93 mph. His team was looking to improve on that if they hoped to take out Bernard in the opening stanza.

Timoszyk, in the near lane, launched first by more than a tenth of a second, with an .038 light to Bernard's (far lane) .158 reaction. It didn't take long for Bernard to close the gap as they ran side-by-side to the finish line. At the stripe, it was a margin of just .004 of a second, as Timoszyk's great (career best?) 3.941 - 206.67 fell just inches short of Bernard's winning 3.817 - 189.98 pass. The closest race of the weekend and one of the closest of the season to this point.

(LEFT) The final pair of the round matched up the Top Alcohol Funny Car "Thunderin' Okie" of Bob Alberty Jr. against the '57 Chevy out of North Dakota. Alberty dipped into the 3.80's with a very strong 3.873 at only 168.15 mph to land in the #10 spot overall, and #2 in the "B" field.

(RIGHT) Facing Alberty was the sinister looking '57 Chevy-bodied "Wicked Quick" of FCC regular Jim Chase. He qualified a little slower than normal as he could only manage a 4.108 - 178.33 best in qualifying.

(LEFT) When the green flashed, both drivers left the line with quick reactions: Chase carded an .036, while Chase was even better with an .015 reaction time. Alberty started smoking the tires right at the hit, and had to pedal his way to a losing 4.611 - 151.24 effort, while Chase turned on the winlight with a quicker pedal job that resulted in a 4.461 - 181.28 timeslip as he advanced to the next round.

(RIGHT) Here's a closeup view of Alberty's trouble off the line as the front tires are in the air, the rear tires are smoking and showing daylight under them. It's actually somewhat incredible that he was able to recover and post a semi-respectable number after that.

With the first round in the books, the pairings were set for the semifinal, with Bill Bernard choosing his lane over Mike Minick and Bobby Martin having his pick over Jim Chase.

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "C" Field - Eliminations Round ONE

The "C" field was also an indexed field with a 4.04 index, courtesy of Lee Loveall's top qualifying 4.197 elapsed time.

(LEFT) The "other" '57 Chevy in the show, the "Must Be Nice" of Indiana's Justin Malott warmed up the hides before making his first round run.

(RIGHT) Malott's opponent, in the near lane, was Colin Thomas in the flat black "Twisted Sister" entry. Malott got a slight jump on Thomas off the starting line and opened up more of a gap going down track, stopping the clocks with a winning 4.207 - 172.43 over the trailing, but decent 4.374 - 177.02 of Thomas.

(LEFT) The shortest wheelbase car in Funny Car Chaos has to be the Vega-bodied "Hombre" of Oklahoma's Mike Buchanan in the near lane. He's been running with the FCC folks since 2020 and knows how to get it done. He left the line a little late (.213 to .153 lights) to his opponent Dana Kleinhoffer in the beautiful new "Tremor" and the tardiness cost Buchanan as his 4.361 - 169.17 fell well short of Kleinhoffer's better 4.295 - 166.60 clocking.

(RIGHT) Here's a closer loook at the Tremor as it launches with the front tires slightly off the asphalt and the slicks grabbing hard. Qualifying in the middle of the "C" field and turning on the winlight in his first round of FCC racing has to rank as a successful weekend, with possibly more to come.

(LEFT) Another "refugee" from the NHRA Top Alcohol wars, Bill Naves lined up the "Shooting Star" in the near lane against the "Ballew Thunder" of Jordan Ballew. The Thunder team has been to every Funny Car Chaos event from the beginning of the 2019 season, now at 43 races and counting. Ballew qualified #22 overall at 4.28, while Naves came in at #22 with a 4.20 e.t. Not that much separating them.

(RIGHT) Ballew launched first by .064 of a second, but his 4.306 - 163.93 wasn't enough to hold off the superior 4.171 - 160.56 from Naves. The gap at the finish line was more than a car length but it was closer enough to be exciting for the fans.

(LEFT) The round finished with Neil Girot in his "Twist 'n Shout" entry that qualified #21 with a 4.279 - 148.58 mph pass.

(RIGHT) In the other lane was Lee Loveall in the "Giant Killer" Chevy II, who sat at the top of the "C" field (#17 overall) with a 4.197 - 169.44 to his credit.

When the ambers flashed and the greens came on, the cars left together, but Loveall pulled out to an early lead and increased it going down track before stopping the timers at 4.191 - 169.17 over Girot's 4.516 - 155.74 effort in the losing cause.

With the round complete, pairings for the second round were set with Bill Naves having his choice over Dana Kleinhoffer and Lee Loveall choosing against Justin Mallot.

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "A" Field - Eliminations Round TWO

With the fields cut in half for the semifinals, the pressure was squarely on all the racers to step up or go home.

(LEFT) First out of the blocks was the "No Name" car of Jesse Clark as he burned out against the backdrop of a darkening sky. After getting a free ride in the fist round when Ray Drew broke, he knew that he'd have to step up and get deep into the 3-second zone to match wheels with Brian Lewis.

(RIGHT) Almost identical reaction times, .029 for Lewis (far lane) and .036 for Clark (near lane), and almost matching e.t.'s flashed up on the scoreboards, as Brian Lewis in his "Grumpy 2" got the winlight with his quickest pass of the event at 3.712 - 204.26. Trailing by less than a car length was Jesse "No Name" Clark with his best of the weekend 3.744 - 203.62 that wasn't quite quick enough.

(LEFT) It's difficult to write that Kirk Williams in the Williams' brothers "200 Proof" entry came into the round as an underdog, but Williams' 3.834 wasn't nearly as quick as Keith Zimmerer's 3.692 in the opening round.

(RIGHT) These two veteran drivers both tried to chop down the tree with Zimmerer (far lane) cutting an .023 light, while Williams (near lane) was a tad quicker at an .023 reaction time. Zimmerer slowed half a tenth from his first round effort, with a 3.749 - 202.76, and Williams picked up a little with a 3.801 - 203.80, but it was a full car length victory for Keith's "Penny Pincher" entry. The only fly in the ointment was Zimmerer lost lane choice to Brian Lewis for the final round.

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "B" Field - Eliminations Round TWO

(LEFT) Another major tire smoker announced the presence of Mike Minick and the "Chi-Town Hustler" for his semifinal match against Steve Timoszyk.

(RIGHT) When the lights flashed it was the "Detroit Tiger" taking an immediate lead, but that was due to a redlight in Timoszyk's lane. His -.074 reaction gave him an immediate lead that he held most of the way down track. Minick took the win with a solid 4.169 - 174.39 while Timoszyk lifted early and stopped the clocks with a 4.374 - 145.77 on his side of the scoreboards.

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "C" Field - Eliminations Round TWO

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The latest update as of June 21, 2025

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - Twisted Shifterz Summer Nationals - Cordova Dragway

We know it's late but here's the final rounds from last weekend's Funny Car Chaos race at Cordova Dragway. We've got tonnes more photos and words to complete the report, but this is a start. Much, much more tomorrow. As always: STAY TUNED!

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "C" Field - FINAL round

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "B" Field - FINAL round

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "A" Field - FINAL round

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Much more to come tomorrow! Stay tuned!

The latest update as of June 18, 2025

Division Six National Open - Mission Raceway Park

After a day of testing and a day of qualifying it was time to get down to the business of eliminations on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

It looks like a Top Alcohol Dragster, and in fact it was.... 20+ years ago, but now it plys it's trade in the Top Dragster class. Still supercharged and burning methanol, but utilitzing a Powerglide transmission and a Rootes blower instead of current TAD spec equipment. The car is a Bob Meyer chassis, owned and driven by the late Ken Rempel in the early 2000's before moving through a few hands and ending up with ex-Top Alcohol raccer Leo Grocock. He's got his son-in-law Rob Phippen behind the wheel and has seen some success in the 1/8-th mile Top Comp races, as shown by the 4.01 - 177.51 laid down on this pass on a 4-flat dial-in.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Eliminations Round ONE

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TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Eliminations

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSER - Eliminations Round TWO

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TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Eliminations FINAL

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The latest update as of June 17, 2025

Division Six National Open - Mission Raceway Park

There's an over-used term for denoting something noteworthy these days. It's called "blowing up the internet" and it usually refers to someone or something that has a brief flash of notoriety and then when their "15 seconds of fame" (a very old term) is over, everyone moves on to the next shiny thing that pops up. However, in some cases, something very good has happened and it flashes it's way around the world at almost the speed of light, igniting waves of aftershocks.

That happened last Saturday afternoon when Shawn Cowie made the quickest run by a blown alcohol dragster in the history of the sport of drag racing. It was all over multiple Facebook pages very quickly, and kept reverberating through cyberspace from Mission Raceway's own Facebook page, to the Drag Illustrated Facebook page. Then it became a front page story on NHRA's website when Phil Burgess wrote Cowie makes quickest ever blown alcohol dragster pass en route to Mission win.

Later, much later in fact, it's here at Northern Thunder as we try to catch up on a whirlwind 36 hour visit to Mission Raceway for a trip down quite a memory lanes and some new, and exciting experiences. It's going to take quite a while to unpack (another over-used cliche/term in today's world) everything and get at least some of it posted here. But let's start with the first round of Top Alcohol qualifying that took place at noon Saturday.

Unfortunately, due to an extreme lack of preparation and lack of use of my camera equipment, my photographic contributions to this report are very much sub-optimal, but luckily, an old friend, Gerry Frechette, who happens to be a very good photographer, kindly contributed some much better pictures to make this page much more viewable.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Session #1

With the recent passing of Woodburn Dragstrip's Jim Livingston, (read a very heartfelt tribute to Jim on the Firebird Raceway website), his son-in-law, Joey Severance was unable to make the trek north to round out a very stout eight-car field of top notch dragsters. His attendance would have made it an even split in the field, with blown cars versus a quartet of injected nitro entries.

Conditions were almost perfect for the racers, with a well prepped track surface, "mineshaft" air - -376' density altitude, 57 (F) air temp and a cool track surface under a partly cloudy sky. Things got underway just a few minutes before the scheduled noon start.

(LEFT) First out of the lanes was Kim Parker in the "Copeland Motorsports" A/Fuel car. The team arrived late on Friday and didn't get in any testing so this would be her first hit since the 4-Wide Nationals in Las Vegas in mid-April. After a solid burnout, the run went south in a hurry as she lit the tires on the launch and coasted to a 10.101 e.t. at 121.72 mph.

(RIGHT) Another nitro burner came out in the first pairing, as Red Deer, AB's Mike Quayle looked for a big improvement over his "best" run of 8.147 in Friday testing. That 8-second pass was his best of three attempts. This first qualifying run went from bad to worse as he went into hard tire shake right off the line and coasted to a 14-second timeslip. Thankfully, with just seven cars on the property he was at least qualified for eliminations tomorrow.

(LEFT) The next pairing saw our first side-by-side competitive passes of the day, with Oregon's Mike Austin, in his colourful "LAD Automotive" blown car putting down a good 5.488 at only 220.37 mph. His half-track numbers were excellent, with a 3.557 - 222.55 clocking, indicating a low 5.30 number for the entire run, but a burst panel let go and the car slowed substantially on the top end. Still, a very good start to the weekend after a long absence from MRP.

(RIGHT) Running alongside Austin was fellow Oregonian Mitch Myers, who ran a very early shutoff 5.590 - 196.16 on Friday. He had to pedal at least once on this pass but still managed a respectable 5.492 - 259.97 to place him #3 on the ladder after Austin and Chris Demke, who earlier made a very strong 5.240 - 275.23 in the team's new, and as yet, unwrapped or lettered dragster.

Here's Myers (near lane) taking an early lead over Austin (far lane).

Saving the best for last, local hero, 2024 World Champion, and all-round tough competitor, Shawn Cowie on the burnout, making his first pass of the weekend in the right lane. His two test passes on Friday, 5.190 and 5.139 were both in the left lane. Of note is that the 5.13 became the new track record. How long would it last? You'll have to read on to find out....

Run order for the first qualifying session is determined by the racers' positions in the championship standings. With Sean Cowie (near lane), coming into the event in the #4 spot and his opponent Casey Grisel (far lane) in the #13 spot, they were paired up to end the first round. Grisel launched first with a slightly redlight (-.013 reaction time), and ran hard all the way to the finish line, stopping the clocks with a tremendous 5.227 - 280.02 time. Cowie was just a little quicker at 5.194 - 273.56 to take the top spot on the list. Looking at his finish line speed it could be conjectured that a quicker e.t. might be in the offing later.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #1

Despite the best efforts of Mission Raceway and NHRA's Division Six director Mike Eames, they could only attract one Funny Car to the event. Apparently, the campaign to get a representative field of dragsters and funny cars for this race started last fall when the National Open date was confirmed. The lack of participation is due to numerous factors, but they all come down to the one common denominator: MONEY. As in too much to put a together, let alone run it, and not enough return to justify the "investment".

The "Cascade Motor Coach and Trailer Sales" team, with Brian Hough driving, showed up early on Friday and made two test passes to start their first visit to Mission since 2019. The first pass was a very early shutoff that netted a 6.00 - 165.26, while his later effort came close to his own track record (5.429), with a very strong 5.478 - 247.12 lighting up the scoreboard. If he'd kept the pedal down all the way it might have been very close to record territory indeed. This time he put down a slightly quicker and faster set of numbers, with a 5.460 - 264.86 coming up on the timers.

After one round of qualifying, it's Cowie on top (5.194), followed by Grisel (5.227), then Demke (5.240), Austin (5.488), Myers at (5.492). In the sixth spot is Parker (10.101), and at the bottom of the ladder Quayle (14.855). There's still two more qualifying sessions so there will almost certainly be some changes in the order.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Session #2

The slowest e.t. car of the first session gets the "honour" of leading off the next round of qualifying. Rebounding - and that's putting it mildly - Mike Quayle sent his hard working crew into orbit when career best numbers, e.t. and speed, lit up the right lane scoreboard. Their first trip into the 5.20's netted a brilliant 5.254 - 272.07 that moved them up to the #4 spot in the suddenly tightening field.

(LEFT) Next up were the #5 (Myers) and #6 (Parker) from the first session. The Kim Parker team were ready to lay down a good run but got off to a very bad start, smoking the tires instantly, pedalling, shaking and smoking, then on the third attempt got the ill-tempered car to settle down and start charging. The resulting numbers were a weird combination of poor e.t., 7.200 and semi-serious mph at 258.92. It still left them at the bottom of the field with just one more chance to get out of the basement.

(RIGHT) Still having trouble getting a grip on the air density the "EPHA" team of 30+-year veteran Mitch Myers were having trouble before the 330' mark and could only manage a consistent, but not quick enough 5.512 - 262.24. Not enough momentum down low, and not enough power on the top end, they were down a notch to the #6 spot going into the final round of qualifying.

(LEFT) It's not too visible in this burnout shot, but Chris Demke had the #6 cylinder out of commission from fire-up to shut-down. The crew kept hoping that it would clear up but it never did and Demke threw in the towel barely 100' off the starting line. The clocks eventually stopped at the 13+ second mark, while the MRP track crew checked to see that it was just fuel on the track, and not something slippery. A post-run inspection revealed that a pinched ring land was the culprit, but luckily not enough oil exited through the pipes to require a cleanup.

(RIGHT) In the other lane, Mike Austin kept the throttle open all the way down, running comparable early numbers to his first session run, eventually carding a very solid 5.389 - 268.82 to hang on to the #5 spot after two rounds of qualifying.

(LEFT) Running in his preferred left lane, Shawn Cowie was ready to see what the team could do after "a little more rubbing" (his words) on the car. The track was getting tackier, the air was still excellent (+35') density altitude and the air temp was low at 63 (F). All very conducive to maximum horsepower production. After another of his patented valve spring torturing burnouts, he prepared to stage the car.

(RIGHT) In the near lane, Shawn Cowie, and on the far side, Californian Casey Grisel in the "Darien & Grisel" entry. On the green, Grisel took an early lead by virtue of a quicker reaction time, but Cowie was in front at the 60' mark, courtesy of a stellar (.898) 60' time. From there it was almost all Cowie, with Grisel two mph faster at the 660' mark, but well behind on e.t. all the way to the finish line. The end result was a new track e.t. record of 5.130 at 280.20 for Cowie, while Grisel backed up his earlier time with a very good 5.291 - 274.39 as he stayed solidly in the #2 spot on the ladder.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #2

We don't have a photo from Brian Hough's second qualifying shot, but after a good burnout, he was forced to shut the car off before staging. There was no breakage, simply an empty air bottle. Oops!

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Session #3

Without a full field, there was no bump spot and the only pressure on the racers was to improve their e.t.'s and move up the ladder into a more advantageous position going into Sunday's eliminations. There was a sharp divide between the top four qualifiers, with Shawn Cowie on top at 5.13 and Mike Quayle in the #4 spot at 5.25, before the numbers dropped off to Austin's 5.38 in #5, followed by Myers and Parker.

(LEFT) Still looking to break into either the low 5.40's or better yet, the 5.30's, Mitch Myers took another shot and came up with a consistent, but slower, 5.581 - 262.09 to close out his qualifying efforts. Making a total of five passes, between a best of 5.49 and a 5.59 (discounting a tire shakimng 8-second pass), he split the difference this time with a decent 5.581 - 262.09 clocking. The end result was the #6 rung on the ladder.

(RIGHT) After two less than satisfactory efforts, the Parker team, with Kim Parker at the tiller, wanted to get off the last spot on the ladder and show what they were capable of. It didn't happen, and in fact, got worse, as the engine gave up on the launch and left Kim sitting stopped before the 330' mark, waiting to be towed down to the return road. Three attempts and three misses. It was looking like a long night of work in the Parker pits to sort out their problems.

(LEFT) With a new Chip Neilsen-built car (to them), the "Peen-Rite" team was working out the bugs and trying to develop some consistency as they became acclimatized to the new chassis. They had a great 5.24 number on the board already, putting them #3 in the field, but wanted their first visit to Mission Raceway to be memorable for more than that.

(RIGHT) On their final qualifying pass, the car launched hard in the near lane, with a very good .904 time over 60', then started drifting towards the wall after the 330' mark, forcing Chris Demke to shut off to a slowing 6.312 - 153.37 timeslip. In the far lane, Mike Quayle fell off just a little from his second session 5.25, but put down a solid 5.317 - 270.27 to remain in the #4 spot going into eliminations.

(LEFT) The final pair of qualifying met once more, with Casey Grisel trying to find enough extra power to get near the #1 spot. He didn't quite make it, but an otherwise very good 5.269 - 278.81 finished off a successful day of qualifying for the "Darien & Grisel" team. With three runs between 5.22 and 5.29, they had to be satisfied starting eliminations tomorrow from the #2 rung on the ladder.

(RIGHT) Backing up from their burnouts, Shawn Cowie (near lane) and Casey Grisel prepared to make their final qualifying passes.

(LEFT) A "slightly" different angle on the burnout as Cowie blazes the hides for the umpteenth time over the course of his 18 years in the hot seat of a Top Alcohol Dragster.

(RIGHT) Launching hard and keeping the pedal to the metal all the way to the stripe, Shawn Cowie gave it everything they had in pursuit of a new track record. He not only did that, but eclipsed his career best elapsed time as well. When the verdict flashed up on the scoreboard, everyone was stunned for a millisecond before erupting into a rapturous roar as the gravity of the moment sunk in. They had all just witnessed significant history being made as the 5.115 was the quickest supercharged methanol-burning dragster elapsed time in the history of the sport of drag racing.

The numbers, taken to the fourth decimal point were 5.1159 and 281.25 mph. Absolutely incredible, and done in the "worst" air density of the weekend (to that point) at 258 ft. above sea level. Needless to say, it firmly cemented Cowie in the #1 spot in the field, and gave him a bye run in the opening round of eliminations on Sunday.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #3

With nothing other than bragging rights, and possibly a new track record to aim for, Brian Hough lined up for his last shot at the tree on Saturday afternoon. He made his quickest and fastest run of the day with a great 5.449 - 264.86 that fell just short of his own 5.429 Mission Raceway record. Talking to him on Sunday morning revealed that he "wished he had turned up the wick just a little bit" after seeing how quick Shawn (Cowie) ran just a few minutes earlier.

That's all for qualifying; our eliminations coverage will start showing up tomorrow, but it may take a few days to be complete. Keep checking and reloading this page to see all the latest updates.

The latest update as of June 16, 2025

Division Six National Open - Mission Raceway Park

We open our coverage with a pair of images taken at the end of a long hard fought weekend for the racers, crews, and everyone at Mission Raceway that worked so hard to make the National Open a very successful event. And a special shoutout to long-time (34 years) veteran NHRA announcer Alan Rinehart, who accepted the generous invitation from local Pro Mod hero Justin Bond to join the event and work the microphone.

Top Alcohol Dragster winner Shawn Cowie and the entire crew of the Mundie's Towing & Recovery team in the Titanium Auto Group Winners Circle at Mission Raceway Park. Celebrating their first regional win of the 2025 season, and 42nd of his long career in the class, after overcoming some very tough competition at the Northwest Division Six National Open event.

The latest update as of June 13, 2025

Division Six National Open - Mission Raceway Park

The gates are open, the pits are fillin up, and cars are running down the track. Proceedings got underway at 9:00 am with absolutely killer - corrected altitude -384' - air, but within an hour it had gone all the way up to +418'. Still, awesome conditions on a cool - 12 (C) or 53 (F) track. While today is mostly about the sportsman cars, undoubtedly there will be test runs by the Top Alcohol cars, especially in light of the fact that they haven't run at MRP for six years, and in many cases, much longer than that.

We reached out to the Division Director for a pre-entry list of Top Alcohol cars, but failed to garner a reply. However, through the "magic" of Facebook, we were able to scroll through the MRP page and see postings of a bunch of cars that will presumably be in attendance. And it's a list of the who's who in the TOP Alcohol world, with at least two former and one current world champion in the mix, and a bunch of other 5-teen, and 5.20 runners in the mix.

While the Funny Car is very short, starting and ending with Brian Hough, it's top quality as the Oregon racer is a perennial championship contender. The dragster contingent obviously starts with home-town hero Shawn Cowie, followed by (in no particular order), Casey Grisel, Chris Demke, Mitch Myers, Alberta's Mike Quayle, Mike Austin, and Kim Parker. Refreshingly, there's a nice mix of blown (three) and injected (four) entries. We can't wait to see how these cars will do this weekend, and best of all, we'll be there to catch all the action, on and off the track.

Unfortunately, or possibly not, we donated our old laptop computer to a charity last month and all we've have with us a very old (10 years!) iPad that is okay for keeping notes, but not for updating the website. Our next posting will be on Monday morning. And we'll have the report up by Tuesday night. Stay tuned for that!

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8:00 UPDATE

Today was the test 'n tune part of the Mission Raceway National Open. With most of the Top Alcohol cars not running here for six years or more, it was a chance for them to see if their current tuneups were ready for the track. One of the first dragsters out, Shawn Cowie, wanted to see if his recent test sessions here would translate into good numbers for this event. To say they did would be a "bit" of an understatement. To wit, his first pass at 12:30pm, in -262' air was a strong effort to just past the 1100' mark before he clicked it to a 5.1902 at just 257.58 mph.

They brought it out again in the late afternoon, with the density altitude up all the way to 138' (still awesome air!) and ran it to the stripe, lighting up the scoreboards BIG TIME with a 5.139 - 280.90 pass, less than two hundredths off his career best 5.121 of 2023. And today's speed was just a tick off his career best 281.54 from 2024. Here's the timeslips for the runs, courtesty of Mission Raceway's Track Vision app. It amazes me at times at just how far we've advanced technologically from handwritten timeslips and results coming out days and weeks after an event. Now it's all at your fingertips, in real time, with all the minute details.

Timeslips courtesy of Mission Raceway Track Vision app

It should be mentioned that Cowie broke the track e.t. and speed records with his 5.19 - 280.90 blast. Only three other dragsters made test runs and the best of those was Mitch Myers with a 5.590 - 196.16. The low speed shows that he was on a pretty good pass before shutting off before the 1000' mark. Chris Demke recorded a so-so 5.659 - 254.89, while Mike Quayle made three hits, none quicker than 8-seconds.

The lone Funny Car to run, Brian Hough, made an early shutoff (6.00 - 165.26) pass before laying down a late in the day 5.478 at only 247.12 Mph. The speed didn't come close to the existing 273.30 track record, but the e.t. broke the exisitng record. There's obviously a quicker e.t. lurking in the tuneup if he stays on it all the way to the finish line.

All in all, it looks like one heck of a weekend of performance is in the offing. We can heardly wait to get there!

The latest update as of June 11, 2025

It's good to be back online after a nearly day-long interruption of this website. Thankfully our hosting company, SuperWebHost was able to solve the problem and get us back up and running again. During the downtime, we started filling in the many blanks on the Features page, posting the start pages for the eight events this year that we have covered or will be covering in the next two weeks. Once we fill in all the blanks, and there are literally hundreds of them, then we can finish posting all the feature events from the last few years that have languished in the depths of the "What's Old" section of the website.

While that's going on, we'll be busy prepping for the Mission Raceway Park NHRA National Open, coming up in just two days. Yikes! Better start packing. That's all for now.

The latest update as of June 9, 2025

NORTHWEST NATIONAL OPEN - WEST REGIONAL at Mission Raceway Park - June 13 - 15, 2025

It's still four days away, but for the first time since 2019. It's been six long years, punctuated by the pandemic, and carrying on until 2025 before Top Alcohol cars will be running at MRP. In the 2019 regional event, a "grand" total of six cars - two Funny Cars and four Dragsters, competed in what could have been a rather lacklustre affair. However, there were some serious names running, ranging from current world champion Shawn Cowie to championship contender Brian Hough. Other serious runners like Casey Grisel, Kim "Going Top Fuel" Parker, Alberta's Mike Quayle and the always entertaining Chris Marshall rounded out the small but mighty show.

Through the grapevine we've heard that seven dragsters and three funny cars will be in attendance this coming weekend, almost double the car count from six years ago, and there are hopes for at least more last minute additions to the lineup. As soon as we have more news it will be posted here. BONUS: For the first time in seven years, Bobby THUNDER will be in attendance, documenting the proceedings with photos and reports.

NEWS Flash: Alan Rienhart will be working the microphone in the announcing booth at Mission Raceway this weekend. After a long career with NHRA, which ended mid-summer in 2024, he landed in the IHRA earlier this year. That didn't last long as the revolving door of hiring/un-hiring went into overdrive at the "new"-est iteration of that sanctioning body. For the moment, he's a free agent and he's going to be making his first appearance at MRP. It should be very interesting, and very entertaining.

The latest update as of May 27, 2025

DOUBLE CHAOS - Eddyville Raceway Park, Oskaloosa, IA

Unlike the (nearly) ill-fated season opener, which had to be rescheduled, then nearly rained out on the new date, the second race on the schedule went off on schedule, on time, albeit with a smaller car count, but still plenty of alky and nitro burning race cars. Qualifying for the three-day event started on time on Friday night, with the Funny Car Chaos crew leading off.

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - Qualifying Session #1

(LEFT) Last season's #4 racer in the final standings, Wayne Hofmann in the very familiar "China Syndrome" entry started his weekend with a strong burnout. He followed that up with a solid run of 4.41 - 159.57 to grab a very provisional top qualifying spot.... after the first pair of cars went down the track.

(RIGHT) Determined to overcome the 2024 season's string of blower woes, which sidelined him for most of the season, Keith Zimmerer laid down a strong burnout before taking the green light.... then going into instant tire smoke and coasting to the finish line at 18.11 - 29.69 mph.

(LEFT) The Colorado competitor, Bill Bernard in his "Grinder" entry left hard but took out the 330' timing block, which negated his 4.69 - 108.15 effort.

(RIGHT) Coming down from Bismarck, ND was regular competitor, Jim Chase in his ultra-cool and very competitive '57 Chevy, aptly named "Wicked Quick". He left with the wheels up, bounced a couple of times before shutting off to an 8.08 - 59.86 mph clocking that was wiped out by Bernard's timing block removal. At this point, we had four cars down the track and only one e.t. (Hofmann's 4.41) that was worth posting.

Another perennial championship contender moved into the water box next, as the Troxel & Schneider team, with Chris "The Butcher" Schneider driving, prepared to launch the '71 Mustang "Brutus" down the track. He left with the wheels up and finally set them down near the 300' mark before shutting off to a 4.636 - 121.00 clocking on a solo run. He was scheduled to run against the "Twisted Sister" entry of Colin Thomas that fell victim to a major oil leak when the car was fired.

Running alongside the #2 (by ONE point) driver from last season, Kirk Williams in the "200 Proof" entry, was Neil Girot in the ?"Twist 'n Shout' entry. Girot laid down a solid burnout and launched well with the wheels up, but his time was negated by Williams' taking out the finish line e.t and mph timing blocks. The scoreboards showed a "not to be believed" 3.64 - 222.99 for Girot, while Williams' side rang up a 3.74 - 201.34 time. Unfortunately, both sets of times were removed from the list.

(LEFT) Following a very impressive FCC debut at the seaso opener in Ennis, TX, Brian Lewis looked to follow-up on that performance with the "Grumpy2" at Eddyville. He launched hard and kept the hammer down to the 330' timers before clicking it off to a 4.638 - 112.53 that put him on the list into the "B" field with two more qualifying sessions remaining.

(RIGHT) Long-time FCC competitor, Steve Timosyzk in the Pancho Rendon tribute "Detroit Tiger" Monza, lined up against Lewis but was unable to keep the throttle open very long, shutting off early to record a 6.248 at only 81.77 mph.

(LEFT) The next pair featured a veteran racer and a relative newcomer. Making only his third start in FCC competition, Cody Chatfield in the "Booze Brothers" Monza put down a solid opening pass of to grab at least a temporary hold on the #1 spot in the qualifying order.

(RIGHT) Running with Chatfield was longtime FCC racer Mike Buchanan in the Charlie Therwanger tribute "Hombre" Vegas. He matched wheels with Chatfield most of the way to the finish line, ringing up a very respectable 4.312 - 173.48 that landed him in the #5 position at the end of the session.

(LEFT) Another full-on Top Alcohol flopper came out next in the tower lane as Robbie Massey in the "Moats, Massey & Grim" entry. The car ripped off a great .936 time at the 60' clocks, then pulled the pin early, stopping the clocks with a 4.399 - 120.97. The low speed showed there was a lot more on tap for the later sessions.

(RIGHT) The first blown fuel car of the evening ran in the lane opposite to Massey, and Colin Thomas was able to push the "Twisted Sister" to a very good, albeit early shutoff, 4.259 - 138.93 to slot into the #2 spot behind Cody Chatfield. If Colin had stayed on the loud pedal a little longer he would have easily taken the top spot on the ladder.

After the major damage to the front half of the chassis was repaired following the FCC Classic, Jordan Ballew went out on a solo pass to ensure that the repairs to the "Ballew Thunder" were going to hold up. The car launched hard, Jordan pedaled it once then shut off and coasted to a mid 6-second elapsed time.

One of the most colourful cars in the chaos crowd has to be second generation drag racer Bob Alberty Jr.'s Oldsmobile-bodied "Thunderin' Okie". He laid down a good burnout and launched with the wheels up before having to get out of the throttle and coast to the finish line at 8.790 - 48.64.

Defending series champion Shayne Lawson in the Mustang-bodied "Man O' War" ran very well to the 330' mark before losing traction and clicking it off to a decent 4.290 at only 120.81 mph.

(LEFT) Long time competitor in FCC, Justin Herbst did one of his patented long burnouts in the "Executioner"before staging up and pedaling his way to a so-so 5.429 - 132.00 pass that put him on the board in the middle of the "B" field.

(RIGHT) In a sharp looking new car, making only his second appearance on the circuit, Rick Stockman had trouble early in the "Hellraiser" and was on and mostly off the throttle before stopping the timers with a 7.016 - 73.28 timeslip.

(LEFT) The next pair turned into a pair of single runs, with Kris Battey and his aptly named "Batmobile" leaving the starting line on a bye run, going into instant tire smoke, pedaling and smoking again, before finally finding some grip and blasting through the lights at 5.716 - 158.67. The speed was fourth quickest of the session but the e.t was well down the list.

(RIGHT) Doing an abbreviated burnout, then needing to be pushed back to the starting line, Danny Mann looked to be dead in the water in his "Pony Up" Mustang. However, after Battey made his pass, Mann hammered it through to a solid 4.638 - 149.80 clocking.

Making only his second appearance at a Chaos race, after debuting the "Giant Killer" at the season opener, Lee Loveall made a strong run in his Nova-bodied entry, jumping to the top of the list with a strong 4.209 - 153.11 effort. He was scheduled to run alongside Casey Geeslin but "The Gambler" lost fire before starting his burnout.

Seldom seen at NHRA Top Alcohol races, but still very competitive, Lance Van Hauen in the "Van Hauen Brothers" late model Camaro, hit the throttle hard but instantly lost traction and gave up on the run. He still had enough momentum to reach the finish line at 7.727 - 106.81 to at least get a time on the board.

ARMLESS ARCHER vs FARMTRUCK

(LEFT) This blown alky doorslammer is piloted by Matt "The Armless Archer" Stutzmann and runs very well. It's a mystery to me how he can control the car - and very well I might add - without his arms. He's also a world class archer that is an inspiration to anyone, especially those with a serious disability.

(RIGHT) A very familiar sight from the Street Outlaws television show, it's Sean "Farmtruck" Whitley, with his sidekick Jeff "AZN" Bonnett took on the formidable Top Sportsman car of the Armless Archer. The Farmtruck was given a 1.5 second headstart, and while no times showed up on the scoreboard, the winlight did come on for the Farmtruck.

NITRO CHAOS - Qualifying Session #1

(LEFT) The first pair of Nitro Chaos racers showcased the diversity of the competition with Dave Hill in hs Mustang-bodied "Mad Max" faced off against a front-engined dragster. Dave's opening shot was somewhat abbreviated as he drifted close to the centerline and took out the finish line timing block to conclude his 4.158 - 133.61 pass. The car was running very hard but Dave had to lift early, hence the low mph.

(RIGHT) In the other lane was Indiana's Brian Inouye in the beautiful "Frantic Fueler". Despite the FOR SALE sign on the cowl, the team was loaded for bear and left with the wheels up and trucking as it blasted out the low e.t. and top speed of the evening with a tremendous 3.733 - 200.62 lighting up the scoreboard.

Of course it's a blown fuel Hemi under the hood of this Pro Mod Camaro. Andy Fangman, is running one of the few nitro pro mods still in existence, at least until Scott Palmer rebuilds or replaces his destroyed "Studezilla". Fangman stood on the loud pedal, despite having to pedal a couple of times, and stopped the timers with a respectable 4.328 - 150.75 to grab the #4 spot on the qualifying list.

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The latest update as of May 23, 2025

DOUBLE CHAOS - Eddyville Raceway Park, Oskaloosa, IA

After the "fingers crossed" weather affected season opener at the Texas Motorplex, the racers are hoping for a smoother, warmer and sunnier second race on the Funny Car Chaos 2025 schedule. And it's another double-header, with the Nitro Chaos competitiors joining in for lots of "Chaos in the Cornfield" at Eddyville Raceway Park. While the car count is considerably lower than the FCC Classic, there's still 26 Funny Cars and 13 Nitro Chaos racers entered. It's a three day event, unlike most races on the FCC tour, with a single qualifying session on Friday, two more on Saturday, and eliminations on Sunday.

The event is being livestreamed on the FCC Facebook page, starting today at 5:00 pm CDT. Our photographer is on-site and from the looks of the pics of last night's Bubba Corzine birthday party dinner, the weather will be good for the weekend. That's quite a change from the pattern of iffy and downright awful weather at almost every major event this season. We expect to start receiving photos tomorrow morning and will have our first in-depth reports posted on Sunday morning.

The latest update as of May 13, 2025

FUNNY CAR CHAOS Classic - Texas Motorplex

FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "A" Field - Round ONE Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "B" Field - Round ONE Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "C" Field - Round ONE Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "D" Field - Round ONE Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "A" Field - Round TWO Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "B" Field - Round TWO Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "C" Field - Round TWO Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "D" Field - Round TWO Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "D" Field - FINAL Round

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FUNNY CAR CHAOS - "B" Field - FINAL Round

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The latest update as of May 12, 2025

FUNNY CAR CHAOS Classic - Texas Motorplex

It's taken far too long for our report to hit cyberspace - and we're a very long way from finishing it - but at least we've started. Even though the FCC Classic is a "Funny Car" event, the sister series, NITRO CHAOS has two very strong fields of 80% and above nitro burners. Besides, there's only half as many photos to go through to produce the report. Now comes the hard part: filling in all the blanks, like e.t.'s, mph's, names of drivers and cars, etc. We'll start working on that tomorrow morning. Keep coming back during the week to see our progress.

NITRO CHAOS - "A" Field - Round ONE Eliminations

(LEFT) The first pair out of the staging lanes featured the #4 qualifier, Donnie Massey in his familiar "Showtime" AA/FA (far lane), matched up against Illinois' Brian Inouye in the "Frantic Fueler" AA/FD. Unfortuntely for Inouye, he was way too frantic on the lights, leaving -.232 early and wasting his best run of the weekend, a very strong 3.739 at an early shutoff 180.53. Taking full advantage of the gift win was Massey, who left hard and coasted from the 300' mark to the finish line, stopping the clocks with a 4.282 - 127.91 showing on the scoreboard.

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NITRO CHAOS - "B" Field - Round ONE Eliminations

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NITRO CHAOS - "A" Field - Round TWO Eliminations

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NITRO CHAOS - "B" Field - Round TWO Eliminations

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NITRO CHAOS - "B" Field - FINAL Round

NITRO CHAOS - "A" Field - FINAL Round

The latest update as of April 27, 2025

We're travelling to Ontario this morning and won't be back on the website until May 6th. We will be keeping an eye on happenings in the world of drag racing during that time and hope to get back up to speed as soon as we can after our vacation.

The latest update as of April 25, 2025

FUNNY CAR CHAOS

From the beginning of May until the end of June, a span of nine weeks, will see - if all goes to plan - a total of five Funny Car Chaos races. Looks like a serious case of wait, then hurry up is in the works for the racers, but it certainly beats sitting at home and waiting for a chance to race. The major casualty in Northern Thunder world is our hard working photographer, Bob Snyder who's been booking and unbooking flights, making hotel reservations and cancelling them. His latest plan - that blew up a week ago - was to drive to Tulsa, then continue on to Texas, but now it looks like he's going to be flying to Dallas to catch next week's season opener. After that, who knows ?

In the meantime, it's all systems go for the second 4-Wide NHRA race of the season, the American Rebel Light 4-Wide NHRA Nationals at Charlotte, NC's ZMax Dragway. Qualifying is underway and the weather forecast for the weekend is good.

The latest update as of April 24, 2025

What's Happening in NHRA Drag Racing

The 2024 season dawned brightly for the Scrappers Racing team, as patriach Mike Salinas qualified well and went to the second round at the season opening Gatornationals. He was scheduled to be joined by his daughter Jasmine Salinas at some point during the season as they ramped up to a full-tilt two-car team. That plan went sideways very quickly as Mike had to vacate the cockpit after that first race of the season due to health issues. Jasmine's debut in competition was advanced to the second race on the schedule, the Winternationals at their "home" track in Pomona.

It was tough first few months in the class for Jasmine, despite her two years of competing in an A/Fuel Dragster under the direction of Rich McPhillips. It took four races before she advanced past the first round at the Charlotte 4-Wide Nationals, then four more races before her second round win. Until the final race of the season, at Pomona's World Finals, she had racked up a total of one DNQ, 14 first round losses, and just three round wins. Her fortunes turned around at Pomona somewhat as she got out of the first round for the first time in nine events as she finished the season in 13th place in the Top Fuel standings.

This season started on a so much better note as she went to the semifinals at three of the first four races and had a first round win at the other event. That great start to the season had her sitting in the #5 spot in the standings going into this weekend's American Rebel Light NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at Charlotte's ZMax Dragway. Unfortunately, an announcement early this week derailed her sophomore season in Top Fuel.

Jasmine Salinas will not compete in the next few NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series events, including the American Rebel Light NHRA Four-Wide Nationals near Charlotte. The driver of the Valley Services Scrappers Racing Top Fuel dragster is currently ranked fifth in the points standings but has not secured the necessary sponsorship to continue racing.

Salinas will also miss upcoming events in Chicago and Epping, N.H., but hopes to return to competition in June. Despite this setback, the team will focus on staying mentally sharp and maintaining their momentum, as they are one of only three teams without a first-round loss this season.

"I'm definitely disappointed," Salinas said. "Our team has really been coming together, and we are making incredible progress. We've been working really hard on trying to secure sponsorshi. This is a tough reality of the racing business, but now is the time when you fight even harder for what you want." Salinas emphasized the team's resilience and problem-solving abilities. "This is just a plot twist that we'll get through together as a team," she added.

Hopefully they can acquire enough sponsorship help to get the team on track again and continue on their upward performance trajectory as soon as possible.

The latest update as of April 16, 2025

AI invades drag racing reporting

Check out the latest In Memoriam posting on the NHRA.com website. It's fairly accurate factually, but was either written by an AI content generator, or someone who doesn't know much about drag racing. Normally, these postings are written by National Dragster's Senior Editor, Phil Burgess, but this article about the passing of Rich Guasco was simply attributed to NHRA "Staff".

Compounding the poorly written article was the reposting of it on Competition Plus. The byline read by Bobby Bennett, but all he did was shorten the article, fix a few grammatical errors, but no attempt was made to convert the prose into something that would hold the interest of any serious drag racer or fan. All in all, a sad effort to memorialize a great, hard-core drag racer like Guasco.

IHRA follows through with two major track purchases

After a series of overly optimistic and premature announcements about the purchase of seven drag strips earlier in the year, the IHRA has legitimately finalized a deal for National Trail Raceway (Hebron, OH) and Milan Dragway (Milan, MI). The news first broke on the IHRA website, then was reported on Drag Race Central, but it's not yet been confirmed on the track websites. That's not surprising as most dragstrip websites are poorly maintained, if at all.

Further credence ro the purchase announcements was given by the almost simultaneous relocation of the JEGS NHRA Sportsnationals to South Georgia Motor Sports Park from it's previous home at National Trail Raceway. The bottom line is that it looks like things are starting to move forward at the IHRA as we count down the weeks until their first major event in late June, and their first national event in mid-July.

The latest update as of April 12, 2025

NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

Here's the first batch of photos from Friday qualifying at The Strip. We've got an awful lot of pictures to go through, so it's going to be a while before we can fill in all the blanks on the captions, let alone get the balance of the pics posted.

PRO STOCK - Qualifying Session #1

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FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #1

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TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #1

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The latest update as of April 7, 2025

NHRA 4-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway

It's only two days until the start of the 24th annual NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at Las Vegas. It's the fourth of 20 national events on the Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series 2025 schedule, and the first of not two, but three four-wide events on the calendar in 2025. It was recently annnounced that in addition to the back-to-back 4-wide events at Las Vegas and ZMax Dragway (Charlotte, NC), there will be an additional four-wide race at Charlotte during the Countdown To The Championship in September.

There's full fields in most categories, with the resurgent Pro Stock class leading the way, at 22 drivers entered. Following close behind is Funny Car, which has 19 entries, and trailing is Top Fuel that will not have a full field, as just 15 racers are on the list. The other major dragster category, Top Alcohol Dragster, has 21 racers on the list, and for a pleasant change, eight cars will be running blown, on alcohol. That's one of the largest turnouts for the supercharged variety in the class in quite a while. Sadly, in Top Alcohol Funny Car, the small fields continue, with just nine drivers entered, for a 16-car field.

In total, there are 491 racers entered, with 405 of them in the Sportsman categories. That's a pretty healthy turnout and with a good weather forecast for the weekend, there should be quite a show at The Strip. Qualifying starts on Friday morning, continues through Saturday and eliminations start early on Sunday, with the Pro classes on deck for a noon start. With just three rounds of racing required at a 4-wide race for a 16-car field, it's a fairly compact show that is schedule to finish at 3:30 pm. Unlike the fall race at Las Vegas, there won't be any qualifying under the lights.

The latest update as of March 31, 2025

5th annual FUNNY CAR CHAOS Classic POSTPONED

"The Texas Motorplex and Funny Car Chaos & Nitro Chaos are in agreement that the safest and most responsible move is to postpone the Funny Car Chaos Classic due to severe thunderstorms in the forecast from Wednesday through Saturday of this week in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The event will now be held May 1-3rd. We apologize for any inconveniences this may cause and appreciate your support in this tough decision. Thank you and we'll see you...at the CHAOS!"

The latest update as of March 25, 2025

65th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals

The tire smoke has barely cleared from yesterday's test session at Firebird Motorsports Park, following the NHRA Arizona Nationals which concluded on Sunday. Now the travelling acceleration show heads a few hundred miles west to In-N-Out Burger Dragstrip at Pomona for the 65th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. Entries for the event closed yesterday, for the event which starts on Thursday with a full day of qualifying for the Sportsman racers, followed by the Pro and Pro Sportsman classes on Friday.

While we still have a huge amount of work to do on our coverage of the NHRA Arizona Nationals, we received a large batch of photos from yesterday's test session. We'll try to get some of them posted this evening, but it's going to be a long week of slow progress on the website. As always: stay tuned!

Here's a few "chute shots" from our intrepid lensman, BIG Bob Snyder at the far end of Firebird raceway yesterday.

(LEFT) Testing out the fairly new combination was Cody Coughlin. He failed to qualify at the Arizona Nationals, but just missed the cut by one hundredth of a second with a solid 6.600 - 207.15 best in qualifying. Cody and crew made several passes in preparation for this week's Winternationals.

(RIGHT) Sophomore Pro Stock racer Brandon Foster was out testing too. He ran an abbreviated schedule in 2024, but the plan is for a full pull this year. He got his season off to a good start by making into eliminations, from the bump spot, with a good 6.590 - 207.40. He followed that up in the first round, leaving on Matt Hartford, but coming up half a car length short at the finish line.

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The latest update as of March 24, 2025

40th annual NHRA Arizona Nationals

While we still have most of the qualifying photos and captions to post, we're jumping ahead to Sunday's eliminations. As always, the day starts with the national anthem, with packed grandstands observing before the command to "Start Your Engines" rings out as we jump into the first round of Top Fuel.

TOP FUEL ELIMINATIONS - Round ONE

With only 14 cars entered, and the three lowest qualified cars in the 4- and 5-second zones, there were bound to be some rather lopsided matchups in the first round.

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FUNNY CAR ELIMINATIONS - Round ONE

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PRO STOCK ELIMINATIONS - Round ONE

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PRO MODIFIED ELIMINATIONS - Round ONE

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The latest update as of March 23, 2025

40th annual NHRA Arizona Nationals

We're going back to the first qualifying session(s) from Friday as we've finally received all the qualifying photos from our hard working photographer, Bob Snyder. It's going to take quite a while to go through all the raw material, and even longer to write all the captions to go with the photos. Stay tuned as we work our way through and keep checking back for updates to our NHRA Arizona Nationals report.

7:45 PDT UPDATE: We've got all the photos posted from the first round of qualifying in Funny Car, Top Fuel, Nostalgia Nitro Funny Car and Pro Modified. That's in addition to the second session for Funny Car that was posted yesterday. Next on the agenda will be the second go-round for Top Fuel and Pro Stock. Due to some serious delays caused by a few oildowns, the Pro Mods and Nostalgia Nitro Funny Cars didn't get a second shot at the track before things were shut down for the evening.

We'll be back at it tomorrow but it's going to take a few more days to fill in all the details from Friday's qualifying, let alone all of Saturday's action. At this point we don't have any eliminations photos but they should arrive sometime tomorrow. As always: STAY TUNED!

The latest update as of March 22, 2025

40th annual NHRA Arizona Nationals

The Arizona Nationals is well underway at Firebird Motorsports Park (Chandler, AZ). Two full sessions of qualifying for the PRO cars were completed yesterday, along with a single qualifying session for Pro Mod and the Legends (Nostalgia) Funny Car group. We've got HEAPS of photos from yesterday's second PRO session and will get at least a few of them posted today, with the balance coming tomorrow. Other obligations, i.e. "work" are using most of our time today. And as always: STAY TUNED!

FUNNY CAR QUALIFYING - Session #1

With 20 cars in the pits, expectations were high for some qualifying drama among the non full time racers. Of the 20 cars entered, 19 appeared for the first session under warm (80 F), dry (11% humidity) sunny skies. Corrected altitude was just under 3000 ft.

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That's it for Funny Car; Top Fuel is up next

TOP FUEL QUALIFYING - Session #1

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Up next is Nostalgia Nitro Funny Car qualifying

NOSTALGIA NITRO FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #1

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PRO MODIFIED QUALIFYING - Session #1

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FUNNY CAR QUALIFYING - Session #2

We're still waiting to receive photos from the first qualifying session, but technical difficulties on the other end (Phoenix) are delaying their arrival. The "bump" spot at the end of that first round of qualifying was a rather tepid 9.487 (Paul Lee), with the three alternates carding times that ranged from 9-seconds to 12-seconds plus. There were a total of eight complete - or mostly complete - runs in the session, with five of them producing 3-second times, led by Bob "Mr. MPH" Tasca with a 3.927 - 326.48 clocking.

(LEFT) After skipping the first session, Bobby Bode made a solo pass in Del Worsham's car. He immediately jumped into the field with a strong 3.931 - 323.25 effort, good for the #2 spot at the start of the session.

(RIGHT) Also running a solo when Terry Haddock's crew weren't able to finish prepping the car in time, was Blake Alexander. It's a familiar look wtth the "Pronto" wrap, but he's part of the Chad Green team now after parting ways with Jim Head in the off-season. He rebounded from a first session 9-second clocking to card a 4.201 - 237.30 on this run after dropping cylinders and losing traction at the 660' mark.

(LEFT) It's musical drivers in the "Nitro Moose" entry of the Winefsky family. With young Dylan still getting acquainted with the car, they put John Hale in the seat at the Las Vegas event in November. At this race, it's Jon Capps at the controls. He laid down a good burnout but the car wouldn't go into reverse, and after much effort by the crew and NHRA officials it was pushed back but too late to run.

(RIGHT) Patiently waiting for the "Moose" to get back to the starting line was Paul Lee. The extra running time didn't hurt at all as he took over the top spot in the field with an excellent 3.919 - 328.14 after a tire smoker in the first go round.

Two views of the Dave Richards car, burning out and launching hard. He had the misfortune of the chutes coming out early in the run but still was able to muster a semi-respectable 4.664 - 216.51 clocking.

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TOP FUEL QUALIFYING - Session #2

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PRO STOCK QUALIFYING - Session #2

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The latest update as of March 18, 2025

Busy few weeks coming up

This coming weekend sees the second of 20 events on the 2025 NHRA national event schedule. The 39th annual NHRA Arizona Nationals will be running at Chandler, AZ's Firebird Motorsports Park. With three of the four PRO classes (no Pro Stock Bike) in competition, plus the Pro Mods and six sportsman categories, it's bound to be a great show. Then it's a few hundred miles west to one of the most iconic facilities on the tour, the In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip, site of the 65th annual Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. While we won't have a presence at Pomona, our Southwest photographer, BIG Bob Snyder will be on hand for the entire Arizona event, providing us with all the action photos we can use.

And a week later, it's the season opener for the Funny Car Chaos and Nitro Chaos groups. The 5th annual Funny Car Chaos Classic at the Texas Motorplex (Ennis, TX). We'll have Bob Snyder, plus our Denver correspondent, Dale Fackler, and while he won't be working with us, our good friend Larry Pfister of Horsepower Heaven fame, currently shooting for Competition Plus. Larry's appearance will be the second stop on his 50th anniversary "Pfister Pfoto" tour around North America, as part of a major bucket - heck, call it a barrel - list. Stay tuned for all the photos - and more - that we can handle from The FCC event.

What in the heck is going on at IHRA ???

Less than two weeks ago, the biggest announcement in quite a few years from the International Hot Rod Association blasted through cyberspace, announcing the PURCHASE of seven race tracks, a number of which were sanctioned by the NHRA. Only a day before, their 2025 schedule was released, which included events at a number of those tracks, titled IHRA Delivers on Promise to Revive Professional Racing in 2025. Leading up to the big schedule announcement, one day before that release, was the relatively low-key announcement of IHRA President's Cup Nationals Returns to Maryland International Raceway.

While the first two announcements were plausible and welcomed by the racing community, the "IHRA and Owner Darryl Cuttell Announce Groundbreaking Acquisition of Seven Premier Drag Racing Tracks" announcement brought immediate fallout and denials, and an air of almost total disbelief by the drag racing community. At least those that were outside the ever-widening orbit of the "new" IHRA. A demand for a retraction of the purchase announcement came almost immediately from MIR (Maryland International Raceway), followed by denials of purchase agreements from several of the other properties quoted in the release.

Four days later, Competition Plus did a followup story on the IHRA, titled Regardless of what's on social media, IHRA is sticking to its statement. Then things quieted down for a full week with nothing emanating from the IHRA headquarters, before the latest Competition Plus article detailed in an article titled Don't be surprised if rejuvenated IHRA leans more into an entertainment approach.

The article is filled with direct quotes from IHRA CEO Christian Byrd that detail some "novel" approaches to the question(s) of how to improve the sport of drag racing. Unfortunately, most of them have very little to do with traditional drag racing. When the conversation touches on "We'll diversify into other forms of motorsports. I'll show that, whether it be on water or on snow, or snowmobiles on asphalt or dirt, we're looking at taking our facilities and turning them into playgrounds for car enthusiasts."

Hold on, he's just getting started. In the next paragraph, he goes worldwide with "We're definitely looking closely at international expansion from our sanctioning body side to do more of the better tracks, whether we look to Australia, to Europe, Canada, and Mexico," Byrd explained. "All these things are on the table. So we're really looking at a global perspective, eventually, and being a world leader in racing." You'll have to go to Competition Plus to read the whole article as it does go on quite a bit after the quotes presented here. Just take much, if not all that you read with a grain or possibly a shaker full of salt.

From this point on, let's just wait until the first "scheduled" national event actually takes place. It's on the IHRA calendar as happening on June 13-14 at a TBA location, with the type of event TBA, and the event title.... TBA. Then, two weeks later, the IHRA Night of Fire at Galot Motorsports Park (Dunn-Benson, NC) is next on their agenda. The countdown clock is ticking......

The latest update as of March 11, 2025

Couldn't see this coming... or could we?

After the BIG announcements last week from the IHRA, I was somewhat skeptical of just how true the "acquisitions" of seven tracks, mostly NHRA sanctioned, were factual. Today's feature story on Drag Illustrated's Crew Chief Daily bulletin contradicts most, but not all, of the claims by the new IHRA president, Darryl Cuttell.

A separate article in the same bulletin details a response from one of the tracks involved in this "premature purchase" announcement Maryland International Raceway Clarifies Track Not Being Acquired by IHRA.

Despite requests for comment from IHRA, they have not responded to Drag Illustrated, or clarified any of their previous claims on the IHRA website. There's certainly more to this story coming soon, but for now, we'll just have to put it down to an over-exuberant new management at the International Hot Rod Association. Stay tuned for more, possibly much more on this story in the coming days and weeks.

Now let's get back to what was originally planned to be the focus of today's "What's New" update.

Post Race Gatornationals News

Before we get into some of the details and recaps of what happened over a very long and drawn out weekend at Gainesville Raceway, we've found an explanation for the disqualification of Angelle Sampey before the first round of eliminations in Top Alcohol Dragster. During a standard fuel temperature check in the staging lanes, her fuel was found to be colder than the minimum 50 (F) allowed for the class. Here is her explanation for the DQ.

Tough start to the year in Gainesville. After qualifying 7th with a 5.272 at 264.40, we were unable to make the run during the first round of eliminations due to having fuel that was tested under the minimum required temperature for our class. The NHRA 100% made the right call and we would expect them to do the same for others in violation. To be clear, the temperature was significantly under the minimum.

This wasn't an attempt to run right at 50 degrees for max performance, but rather a bad estimation on our part. To clear up speculation, it's pretty straightforward what happened. We are still running the original Top Fuel fuel tank in the car in the short term as we wait to take inventory of a smaller, purpose built A/Fuel fuel tank that includes an access hole for a temperature probe that regulates our fuel chiller's output.

With the current tank, we run approximately 5 gallons less fuel than what it is capable of holding and there is not an access hole to get our chiller's temperature probe into where the fuel sits. This probe regulates the overall operation of the chiller and stops the chilling process when the fuel gets to a predetermined temperature. Our current option to chill the fuel with this tank requires the chiller to run unregulated and we then estimate if it's close to 50 degrees by pulling fuel from the main fuel line supply to test it.

We knew it wasn't going to be 1:1 with the temperature of what was circulating in the tank, but we definitely did not expect that much of a difference. As mentioned above, we missed, that's on us, and we own it. We're working on alternative ways to monitor this until the new fuel tank arrives and we are ready to get this thing back on track in a couple days in Belle Rose, Louisiana.

The event at Belle Rose that she refers to is the first Central Region NHRA Lucas Oil Series Regional event of the season, running on Friday and Saturday of this week. We're more than quite sure that there will never be a repeat of this mistake by the Hangsterfer - Michalek Racing team in the future.

The latest update as of March 8, 2025

IHRA makes a series of BIG announcements

Following a long silent spell on their website, the International Hot Rod Association made a flurry of announcements over the last two days. First up was the resurrection of the President's Cup Nationals event, scheduled for August 8-9 at Maryland International Raceway (Mechanicsville, MD). While the track is not on the IHRA list of "partner" tracks, the event is posted on the track's website. Almost simultaneously, the BIG announcement of a series of National, Nitro Jam, and Pro-Am events, ten in total, was posted on the IHRA website.

Yesterday brought what could be the biggest announcement of all, the "purchase" of seven race tracks, including two currently NHRA-sanctioned facilities, National Trail Raceway and Milan Dragway. The other properties announced for acquisition by IHRA were Darlington Dragway, Dragway 42, Kil-Kare Raceway, Galot Motorsports Park, and Maryland International Raceway. New IHRA owner Darryl Cuttell phrased the purchases in several different ways in the media release.

The headline read "Groundbreaking Acquisition of Seven Premier Drag Racing Tracks". In the first paragraph of the story read "the organization has agreed in principle to purchase seven premier drag racing tracks". The balance of the release veered off in different directions, talking about a new digital platform (IHRA TV), "partnerships with some of the most successful and popular racing series in the entire world". "These events will combine music, entertainment, and All-American family fun!".

The release closes with the seriously optimistic statement that "IHRA is revolutionizing motorsports by integrating competition, entertainment, and media innovation, to create unparalleled experiences for both racers and fans. "We look forward to revolutionizing racing and the continued growth of a legendary company," Cuttell said. "As we head into the future, we are committed to making drag racing fun again!"

It will be interesting to see how, or if, these grandiose visions all come to fruition. Whatever the result, it will be interesting to watch it all unfold.

The latest update as of March 6, 2025

OOPS!..... My Bad....

My reporting on last week's "Baby Gators" event at Gainesville Raceway contained numerous references to record setting - AND - backup runs required to certify them. Apparently the 1 percent "backup" run required was eliminated just over NINE years ago. With the full adoption of laser activated timing systems, the margins for errors in e.t.'s and speeds have been reduced to practically zero.

While the records set at the Baby Gators event weren't affected by the change, today in the first qualifying session of the Amalie Oil NHRA Gatornationals the national e.t. record for Top Alcohol Funny Car broken again. You get only one guess as to who is the "new" holder at 5.317 seconds. Of course it was Sean Bellemeur in the runaway "Pirate Ship" of the "Killer B's" (Bartone, Boggs & Bellemeur). The speed on that run was "only" 278.29, and not even close to the new-ish record of 281.42 mph set last weekend. The adjusted altitude today was 763 feet, and the air temp was 66 (F), conditions conducive to very quick runs.

We can only wonder what the rest of this week's event will produce in the way of new records in the class. Interestingly, the Top Alcohol Dragster session saw veteran Jackie Fricke in the John Finke-tuned A/Fuel Dragster lay down a career best e.t. and speed of 5.130 - 284.33. The half track speed was an amazing 235.68 mph. It was very good to see that hard working team achieve such a result.

We'll have more to report about the event throughout the weekend. Stay tuned!

The latest update as of March 4, 2025

Another announcement of what could be a quite Heritage Series show with something extra later this year. Just announced on the NHRA website are some of the details for this year's 34th annual California Hot Rod Reunion at Bakersfield's Famoso Dragstrip. Check out the full story on the NHRA.com website.

NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion, Nitro Revival will unite for spectacular event

67th annual Good Vibrations Motorsports March Meet

The gates at historic/iconic/famous Famoso Dragstrip for the March Meet, and test 'n tune sessions start bright and early tomorrow morning.

The latest update as of March 3, 2025

Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals Preview

The entry deadline for the event arrived earlier today and sadly there are only nine Top Alcohol Funny Cars entered. Three injected on nitro and six utilizing convential blown alcohol engines. The news isn't much better for the dragsters are just 12 cars are entered, only one of which is running supercharged. What used to be a well attended exciting season opener for the Pro Sportsman racers has fallen off badly. Other than the pandemic affected 2020 race, which also drew just 12 dragster competitors, there have been full and overflowing 16-car fields all the way back into the 1990's.

At least there are full fields in all the PRO categories, with Top Fuel seeing 17 entries, despite the loss of 2024 regular competitors Tony Schumacher and Ida Zetterstrom, Billy Torrence. Also conspicuous by his continued absence is Mike Salinas. In the Funny Car class, there's 18 drivers, including newcomer to the class, Canadian Spencer Hyde (driving the Jim Head entry). Still missing from the action are the two senior members of the JFR team: John Force and Robert Hight.

In the Pro Stock ranks, there's a bumper crop of 21 entrants, and 19 in the Motorcycle category. Rounding out the group are the ever popular Pro Mods, with 23 competitors entered. That total was bolstered by the late entry of last year's season champion, Canadian Jordan Lazic and his teammate Justin Bond, who are competing despite the very recent and very sudden loss of their Middle-Eastern sponsorship.

Qualifying commences for the PRO cars on Friday, with two sessions, and wraps up Saturday with two more rounds. NHRA has gone back to the four qualifying session scenario for all events this year, with the exception of three sessions at the Virgina Nationals, and the traditional five at the U.S. Nationals.

The latest update as of March 1, 2025

"Baby Gator" News

The first shoe dropped in what could be the story of the year in Top Alcohol Funny Car. The longstanding, since March 2018, top speed record in TAFC, held by Annie Whiteley was broken during qualifying yesterday at Gainesville Raceway. After the otherworldly performance of the Boggs, Bartone & Bellemeur" "Pirate Ship" at a test session at that same track last month, it was expected that the "Killer B's" would be the first to smash the speed record.

Despite recording a speed of 281.42 mph in the final qualifying session, driver Sean Bellemeur wasn't able to back it up within the required 2 % window. His earlier speeds of 275.73 and 276.41 fell just short of the required 278.60 mph to certify the record. So who did break the record? It was Mick "The Real Deal" Steele, as his first qualifying session speed of 277.15 was backed up by the second session 275.56 to give him the record. It might not hold up through eliminations though, as Bellemeur could run fast enough - or faster - to raise the mark over 280-mph.

Additionally, both Steele and Bellemeur have a chance to back up their qualifying e.t.'s, which are both under Bellemeur's current record, set six yearsd ago, of 5.352. Bellemeur's 5.330 and Steele's 5.339 are both below that standard, and they both came close to backing up those e.t.'s during qualifying. If conditions stay conducive to good performances today and the racers remain consistent, we could see some serious history being written. How that will affect the class as a whole remains to be seen, but this weekend will be the first shot in what might be a protracted war between the blown and injected factions in the "Alcohol" Funny Car world.

Stay tuned for more developments later today.

9:30 AM UPDATE: There is now a new elapsed time record in Top Alcohol Funny Car. In the first round of eliminations at the Southeast Division - East Region event at Gainesville Raceway, Sean Bellemeur backed up his low qualifying e.t., 5.330, with an almost as quick 5.349 to validate the record. However, his speed on the run, 271.30, wasn't anywhere near what was needed to back up a possible new speed record. Interestingly, Mick Steele ran another big speed of 276.52 to add to his accomplishments for the event. Both racers advanced to the semifinals so they have at least one more chance to reset the records, and possibly two if they meet in the final round later today.

8:00 PM UPDATE: It's now official that Sean Bellemeur owns both ends of the Top Alcohol Funny Car records. He set the e.t. mark with a 5.330 during qualifying, and backed that up with a 5.349 in the first round of eliminations. The speed record that was set on Friday by Mick Steele was erased when Bellemeur went across the finish line at 280.78 mph in the semifinal round, after putting up a 281.42 mph pass during qualifying. Quite a start for the "Killer B's" and if they can match or better those numbers at next week's Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals, then there will be some very serious looks at the rules package by the NHRA Competition Committee.

The latest update as of February 27, 2025

BUSY weekend coming up

And next week will be even busier. Let's start with the World Series of Pro Mod which is underway at Bradenton Motorsports Park. In fact, they've been testing for the past three days, but today they start getting serious with two qualifying sessions. That's followed by tomorrow's three sessions, and it wraps up on Saturday with five rounds of eliminations for the 32-car field. It's being broadcast on FloRacing.com, and reports are being posted on DragRaceCentral.com.

Simultaneously, there's an NHRA race just a few hundred miles north from Bradenton as the Division 2 - East Region event is underway at Gainesville Raceway. It's the "Baby Gators", the lead-in to next week's NHRA national event season opener, the 56th annual Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals. This week's event is being broadcast for free on NHRA.tv and can also be seen on their YouTube channel.

Somewhat further afield, actually on the other side of the world, a National Drag Racing Championship event is being held at Perth, Australia's Perth Motorplex as the Westernationals kicks off tomorrow. Due to the extreme distance from the major population centres on the east coast of the country, the Top Fuel field is expected to be no more than cars, but Top Doorslammer (aka: Pro Mod) will see more than a dozen entries, and Top Fuel Motorcycle is also on the schedule.

One more race note: the Good Vibrations Motorsports March Meet is on at Bakersfield, CA's Famoso Dragstrip. Unfortunately, we won't have a photographer on hand for the event, but we'll be avidly following the event on the internet through Drag RaceCentral.com. At this time, we're not sure if it will be broadcast anywhere. Fingers crossed though.

The latest update as of February 23, 2025

Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series West Region event at Firebird Motorsports Park (Chandler, AZ)

To see the qualifying story and photos, skip down to yesterday's report.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Eliminations Round ONE

After three rounds of qualifying on Friday, the "Quick 8" faced off in eliminations. The field was bunched tightly, between Madison Payne's 5.175 and Braiden Chesleigh's bump spot 5.304. Falling just short of making the show was veteran Mike Austin, who made his best run in quite a few years at 5.318 - 270.59. For a change of pace, five of the eight qualifiers were running a blown alcohol setup, and exactly half of the racers entered (6 of 12) were running a blown alky combination.

(LEFT) Eliminations started with the #4 and #5 qualifiers facing off. In the near lane, Casey Grisel slowed from his qualifying pace, but a solid 5.312 - 277.66 was just enough to hold off Joey Severance in the far lane. It was close at the finish line, but Severance's slightly slower 5.328 - 270.81 left him less than half a car length behind at the finish line.

(RIGHT) Low qualifier Madison Payne (near lane) had a definite advantage over #8's Braiden Chesleigh in the far lane. Chesleigh left first, but went into almost instantaneous tire smoke and slowly rolled to a 13-second clocking. Taking full advantage of his plight, Payne pounded out a consistent 5.241 - 278.63 for the easy win.

Next up were a pair of blown cars, with (relative) newcomer Jon Bradford in the near lane against Shaunda Blinzler in the far lane. Bradford was nearly a tenth quicker than Blinzler in qualifying, but didn't really need all that performance edge when Blinzler finally broke the beams with a nearly comatose .518 reaction time. She gave up a futile chase at half track, stopping the timers with a 6.233 - 152.54 clocking that was far behind Bradford's very quick 5.213 - 277.66 winning effort.

(LEFT) Back after a nearly year-long absence on maternity leave, Taylor Januik laid down a hard burnout in her "Red Line Oil"-backed entry. She qualified in the #7 position with a strong 5.297 - 273.66 pass.

(RIGHT) The final pair of the first round matched another pair of blown cars, with Jaunik in the near lane, and 2024 World Champion Shawn Cowie in the far lane. Nearly a tenth of a second separated them in qualifying, but it was a different story in eliminations. Cowie left first by just a few thousandths (.004), but started to fall behind at the 60' mark as he went into heavy tire shake. He was able to pedal and get the car to hook up but his 5.372 - 276.52 wasn't enough to keep pace with Januik's superior 5.299 - 271.19 mph effort.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Eliminations Round ONE

With four of the top seven Funny Cars in the 2024 season competing, joined by two returning veterans, and one rookie, competition was guaranteed to be intense, especially in the semifinal and final rounds. One racer, Kirk Kuhns, broke during qualfying on Friday and was unable to appear, making for two bye runs for the first round. One interesting sidenote gleaned from the NHRA.tv broadcast was that Madison Gordon was driving an all-new car, while Steve Gasparelli was in last year's Gordon family car, that finished #2 in the Top Alcohol standings.

(LEFT)) Leading off the show, Annie Whiteley nearly matched her low qualifying 5.454 e.t. with a very good 5.496 - 267.16 on her bye run. That set her up to face either Brian Hough or Ray Martin in the second round; neither of them an easy opponent.

(RIGHT) In the first pairing of eliminations, Maddi Gordon (near lane) took on Steve Gasparelli (far lane) and what looked to be an easy win for the "BETA" team turned into a pedalfest as both drivers shook the tires just past the 60' mark. Gordon recovered first and started to pull away before half track until Gasparelli lifted and coasted across the line at 6.672 - 178.52. Gordon kept the hammer down and rang up a 6.174 - 253.90 that showed she could pedal an errant funny car like a veteran.

(LEFT) Taking full advantage of the absence of scheduled opponent (Kirk Kuhns), Steve Macklyn ran just a hair quicker than his #3 qualifying 5.546, this time carding a 5.544 - 258.47 to advance to the semifinal. Every run Macklyn made to this point was a little bit quicker than the previous effort, as the team was getting on top of the tuneup.

(RIGHT) The final pair of the round featured the the two closest qualified cars, the #5 Ray Martin (near lane) matched up against #4 Brian Hough in the far lane. They were only a few hundredths apart in qualifying and they stayed that close on this run until half track before Hough started pulling away. Martin slowed on the top end, with a lot of smoke out of the engine near the finish line before stopping the clocks at 5.646 - 257.58. Taking the winlight after overcoming a small holeshot was Hough with a superior 5.528 - 263.72 pass.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Eliminations Round TWO

(LEFT) The semifinal round featured a pair of injected cars and a pair of the blown variety. First up were the A/FD's with Madison Payne in the near lane, facing Casey Grisel in the far lane. It was quite a race as Payne left first with a perfect (.000) reaction time to take an instant half a tenth lead over Grisel. However, Casey had erased that margin by the time they passed the 60' clocks and he continued to stretch it as Payne's car dropped cylinders and laboured down to the finish line with an off-pace 5.787 - 239.74 pass. Running away from her was the Grisel & Darien car with their quickest run of the weekend, a 5.223 - 278.00 for the win.

(RIGHT) Closing the round were the blown cars of Jon Bradford (near lane) and Taylor Januik in the far lane. Launching with a torque converter, Bradford left first and blitzed the 60' timers with an .892 short time to open an instant gap on Januik. She managed to stay close to Bradford until the 1000' clocks before getting too close to the centerline and being forced to pull the chutes earlier. The clocks read <5.435 at only 218.83 in Januik's lane, while Bradford laid down another quick pass of 5.254 - 275.56 to advance to the final.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Eliminations Round TWO

(LEFT) Coming into the round with lane choice, Annie Whiteley (near lane) a small e.t. advantage over Brian Hough in the far lane. Whiteley left first and held the lead until the 330' mark when she was forced to pedal the car to calm it down. For there it was all Hough as he extended his lead all the way to the finish line, where he stopped the clocks with a solid 5.563 - 265.53 winning time. Whiteley coasted across the stripe with a slowing 6.040 - 200.86 in the losing cause.

(RIGHT) The second pair of the round put on a barn burner of a race, with Maddi Gordon (near lane) facing Steve Macklyn in the far lane. The drivers left almost together (.050 to .051 r.t.'s), and from there to the finish line it was a side-by-side race. Macklyn was in front by three hundredths at 330', two hundredths at the 660', and at the 1000' mark he was in front by just one thousandth of a second. From there to the finish line it was all Gordon as she crossed the finish line nearly 10 mph faster, turning a winning time of 5.511 - 267.22 to Macklyn's excelent, but losing, 5.543 - 258.42 effort.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Eliminations FINAL Round

As mentioned in an earlier report, our correspondent wasn't able to stay for the finals, so we've had to construct the report from the NHRA.tv video. First up was the dragster final, with Jon Bradford burning out first in the blown alcohol entry, while Casey Grisel followed suit with his injected nitro ride. When the ambers flashed, it was all Bradford, as he left first, blasted out an .887 short (60') time, then opened the gap to more than a tenth of a second by the 330' timers. Grisel closed the gap slightly in the mid-range but it was more than a car length between them at the finish line. Bradford's winning 5.195 - 278.46 easily covered Grisel's valiant 5.254 - 276.97 effort.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Eliminations FINAL Round

The final race of the event featured the #2 qualifier Maddi Gordon, against #4 Brian Hough. Following their nearly synchronized burnouts with a great race. Hough gave it his best shot, leaving first with an .022 to .038 reaction time advantage, but Gordon eked out a small lead by the 330' mark. She increased the margin to half a car length as they neared the top end before Gordon's winlight came on with her best of eliminations 5.471 - 266.85 that was just enough to hold off Hough's best run of the weekend, a 5.511 - 267.64 effort.

The latest update as of February 22, 2025

Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series West Region event at Firebird Motorsports Park (Chandler, AZ)

The first Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series event of the 2025 season kicked off on Thursday under sunny skies in Chandler, AZ. The first day was qualifying for the Sportsman racers and a test session for the Top Alcohol competitors. Friday saw three qualifying sessions for the alky cars, and today (Saturday) is eliminations for them. A total of 12 dragsters and seven funny cars filled the pits and put on quite a show, with some very quick passes. The bump spot for the dragsters was a very quick 5.304, with first alternate Mike Austin just a few ticks behind at 5.318. In a change from the usual injected nitro domination, seven of the 12 cars were running blown alcohol combinations, and five of them qualified for eliminations.

There were no injected Funny Cars in the pits, as to this point, only four of that breed have been in competition, and none of them are based in the western half of the continent. With only seven floppers appearing, there was no bump spot, but the top five cars were in the 5.50's, and the "slowest" car in the field, Steve Gasparelli, was in with a respectable 5.896 e.t. That marked his first appearance as a driver in several years. Missing from the show were a couple of regulars from last season, as Arizona's Hunter Jones, and California's Will Martin have run out of the essential ingredient required to campaign their cars: MONEY.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #1

(LEFT) Two familiar faces started qualifying, with Utah's Steve Macklyn in his "B&J Transmissions" sponsored entry in the near lane, while the "rookie", Kirk Kuhns lined up on the far side. Macklyn last competed in NHRA racing in 2021, running twice that year before moving over to the Mid-West Drag Racing Series for the past few years. He laid down a solid opening lap of 5.778 - 246.80 to show that the car could run well. Making his debut in the TAFC class, Kuhns put down a decent 5.830 - 241.41 to get his weekend started on the right note.

(RIGHT) Here's a closer look at Macklyn as he passed our photographer at about 150' off the starting line.

(LEFT) Also returning to NHRA after a three year hiatus was veteran Steve Gasparelli, in a new unlettered 2022 Camaro. The only names on the car were Gasparelli and a tribute to the recently deceased Bob Miner. He launched softly and shut off early to a 'getting acclimated" 6.318 - 161.50 pass.

(RIGHT) Showing that she was ready to compete for another Top Ten spot in the standings, Annie Whiteley ripped off a very strong 5.483 - 266.69 to stake a solid claim for the top spot in the field.

(LEFT) Racing in the lane opposite to Whiteley, was Alaskan Ray Martin in the "Miner Brothers" entry. He ran into trouble before the 330' mark and coasted down the track to a 9.241 - 93.32 to open his weekend.

(RIGHT) Laying down a solid burnout in her newly wrapped "BETA" entry, the 2024 world championship runner-up Maddi Gordon was ready to pick up where she left off at the end of last season. After a decent leave, she ran into tire shake early and pedalled her way to a mediocre (for the Gordon family team) 5.989 - 255.73 pass.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Session #1

(LEFT) You might think this is a shot of Mitch Myers doing his burnout. Unfortunately, it was the launch as he went into instant tire smoke and slowly rolled down track to a 16-second elapsed time.

(RIGHT) After just missing out on a Top Ten finish and ending up #12 in the 2024 standings, the Casey Grisel driven, Jerry Darien tuned machine posted a big mph (225.52) at half track, but only a so-so e.t. of 5.397, coupled with a strong 275.62 mph speed at the finish line. That put them #4 on the ladder, but with two strong pairs of cars left in the staging lanes, he would almost certainly drop a spot or three before the session ended.

(LEFT) After a successful entry to the class last season, Tucson's Jon Bradford laid down a very quick and fast 5.224 - 277.03 pass to grab the early pole position in the field. The car leaves with very good reaction times, .018 on this run, and very quick 60' times, .898 on this pass.

(RIGHT) Running in the final pair of the round, the 2024 World Champion, Canada's Shawn Cowie picked up right where he left off and blasted out a top qualifying 5.216 - 278.52 to grab the #1 spot from Jon Bradford. After Cowie ran a 5.220 - 276.52 yesterday in testing, he picked up a little bit in his first competition pass of the year.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #2

(LEFT) The #3 Top Alcohol Funny Car in the world last year, driven by Brian Hough didn't run well (13-second e.t.) in the first session, so he got the "honour" of going first in the second qualifier. He didn't have much better luck, and after a decent .940 short time, shook the tires, pedalled and failed to get the car to hook up before giving up on the run and crossing the finish line with a 7.415 - 151.09 showing up on the scoreboard.

(RIGHT) After a less than successful run in the opening round of qualifying, Ray Martin took another shot at the track and ran very strong for 200' before going into heavy tire shake, forcing him to abort the run and coast across the finish line at 7.546 - 132.00 mph.

(LEFT) After an opening pass of 5.778, Steve Macklyn picked up the pace considerably on his second go-round, stopping the timers with a very nice 5.565 - 257.43 result. That moved him up to #3 on the qualifying list.

(RIGHT) Closing out the session was Kirk Kuhns, and he stutter stepped on the launch (1.111 60' time) and slowed a tenth to a 5.938 - 233.52 pass to remain in the #4 position on the ladder.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Session #2

(LEFT) With the bump spot already sitting at 5.456, Madison Payne and crew chief Dana Hopewell knew they had to step up big-time to ensure a spot in eliminations on Saturday. The result was closer to what they wanted, with a 5.331 - 278.12 result to move into the field in the #6 position. With ten more cars in the lanes awaiting their chance, the e.t. wasn't certain to even keep them in the field.

(RIGHT) Running by himself was Mike Austin, as scheduled opponent (Chris Demke) decided to sit out the session after going off the end of the track in the first qualifying session. Austin was sitting at the bottom of the 12-car list, and needed at least a 5.391 to scrape into the qualified field. He did the deed, with a quick 5.318 - 270.59 coming up on the timers, bumping Casey Grisel out of the field, and landing Austin in the #6 spot.

(LEFT) Needing to knock more than a tenth on his earlier 5.456 e.t., Randy Eakins looked good for the first few hundred feet, but fell off by half track and crossed the finish line at 5.574 - 245.81 as he slipped down the list to the #10 position.

(RIGHT) Another of the strong running blown alcohol cars in the field, Shauna Blinzler was solidly qualified in the #5 spot after her first session 5.312 effort, but fell back quickly on this attempt, giving up before half track and coasting to a 5.938 - 183.15 timeslip.

(LEFT) Backing up her previous 5.297 run, Taylor Januik pushed the "Plan B" car to an almost as quick 5.315 - 273.66 to remain in the #4 spot going into the final qualifying session.

(RIGHT) Already sitting at the top of the list, Shawn Cowie not only backed up his first qualifying pass, but bettered it, albeit slightly, in both speed and e.t. The scoreboard shone brightly with a 5.205 - 278.63 glowing brightly in the late afternoon sun.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #3

(LEFT) There wasn't any drama going into the final qualifying session for the funny cars, as they were all guaranteed a spot in eliminations. Leading off the session was Ray Martin, in the Greg Miner-owned '24 Camaro. After a pair of troubled runs, 7-and 9-second e.t.'s, the team got it figured out with a strong 5.581 - 263.77 that was good enough to place them 4th on the ladder.

(RIGHT) Getting quicker with each run, Steve Macklyn posted his best numbers of qualifying with a strong 5.546 - 257.33 to hang on to the #3 spot in the field and lane choice in the first round. It appeared that he wasn't driving the car all the way to the finish line as he was under 260 mph on all three qualifying attempts.

(LEFT) Another racer who was having a tough time of it in qualifying, Brian Hough finally got it together and pushed past Martin and Macklyn to take over the #4 rung on the ladder. After 13- and 7-second runs, the "Cascade Motor Coach" crew made a clean strong pass of 5.558 - 265.22 as everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief at their change of fortune.

(RIGHT) Running by herself with the odd number of cars in the field, Annie Whiteley upped the ante as she improved on her low qualifying 5.483 e.t. by running even quicker at 5.454 - 267.75 to give her a full tenth of a second cushion over the #2 qualifier, Maddi Gordon.

(LEFT) Closing out the session was Maddi Gordon, who was looking to take over the top spot in the field.

(RIGHT) After the burnouts were completed, Steve Gasparelli, in the near lane, lined up against Gordon in the far lane. Gordon left first and ran away from Gasparellit at all points down track before turning on the scoreboard with a very good 5.471 - 260.56 result. It wasn't quite enough to grab the #1 spot on the ladder but it might have been closer if Gordon hadn't lifted a little early, as evidenced by her 260 mph speed.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Qualifying Session #3

(LEFT) Strangely enough, this pair didn't show up on the NHRA Divisional Live Timing Results page, but we were able to deduce the results by watching the race on NHRA's TV and YouTube channels. In the near lane, Randy Eakins made his final attempt to get in the field, but fell short with a 5.438 - 246.93, while Chris Demke (near lane), in what appeared to be a new car, ran into trouble early and shut off to a 9.981 - 81.25, and also failed to qualify.

(RIGHT) Next up were a pair of injected cars, with Madison Payne (near lane) sitting in the #7 spot in the field, and not feeling safe about staying in, while Mitch Myers (far lane) was on the outside looking in. Payne launched hard and powered to a low e.t. 5.175 and top speed 280.49 to vault to the top of the field. Meanwhile, in the other lane, Myers picked up a tenth over his second session 5.495, clocking in at 5.397 - 266.64 to fall short of breaking into the eliminations field.

(LEFT) Suffering a major blower backfire when he hit throttle to start his burnout, Mike Austin sat helplessly in the car, unable to defend his #7 qualifying position. In the other lane (not shown), Casey Grisel laid down the run that he and partner Jerry Darien had been looking for all weekend, cranking out a very strong 5.235 - 279.85 to jump from outside the field to the #4 rung on the ladder.

(RIGHT) While Shaunda Blinzler (near lane) was safely in the field with an earlier 5.312, her opponent in the far lane, Braiden Chesleigh was sitting in the #9 position with an earlier best of 5.333. Both racers laid down their best runs of qualifying, with Blinzler's 5.295 - 274.89 moving her up to #6 in the final order. In the far lane, Chesleigh bumped his way into the field with a 5.304 - 259.71 despite the car slowing on the top end. Chesleigh's run was just quick enough to bump Mike Austin down to the first alternate spot.

Coming into the final session in the #4 spot, Taylor Januik (near lane) had slid all the way down to #7 when she staged for her final shot at qualifying. In the far lane, Jon Bradford had only dropped one spot to #3 and was looking to move back up the ladder. Both racers had problems on their runs, with Januik backfiring at the 1000' mark, slowing her to 5.541 at only 206.67 mph. On the other side, Bradford launched very hard, with an .893 60' time, and ran strong to half track, but his speed at that point was down 10 mph from earlier runs, and he shut off before the 900' mark to a 5.646 - 194.32 timeslip. He certainly proved that the electronic fuel injection and torque converter combination pioneered by Bob Button was working well.

The latest update as of February 21, 2025

From the "Picture is worth a Thousand Words" department

Posing proudly beside the rear wing with the #1 TAD lettering, denoting his World Championship Status is Shawn Cowie. He's starting his title defense at this weekend's Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series West Region event at Firebird Motorsports Park (Chandler, AZ). We'll have all the details and photos from the event coming here over the next few days. Stay tuned for them!

The latest update as of February 11, 2025

More than a day late (try two months!) on this one....

I don't go onto Facebook very often (as you can see from the "latest" posting on my personal page. And that's why I completely missed a post from over two months from old friend Larry Pfister. He's going to spend his 50th of being one of drag racing's premier photographers touring around North America, working with Competition Plus at a number of major races, and generally having a great time on the "road" (mostly in the air from the sound of it).

Here's the post he made announcing the Pfister Pfoto 50th Anniversary Tour

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 2, 2024
WHAT: Round 1 of the Pfister Pfoto 50th Anniversary Tour
WHERE: World Series of Pro Mod, Bradenton, FL
WHEN: February 27-March 1, 2025

Veteran motorsport photographer Larry Pfister of Victoria, B.C. is thrilled to announce the first round of his 50th anniversary photo tour has been confirmed. The multi-event tour will kick off February 27, 2025 in Bradenton, Florida at the World Series of Pro Mod. The final event of the three race Drag Illustrated Winter Series at the famed Florida facility. "Ive been working on this for over a year" says the 69 year old Canadian. "That it’s actually gonna happen is more than surreal".

To ensure full photo credentials Pfister will be working with Bobby Bennett's Competition Plus website, which is celebrating it's 25th anniversary. "We've known of each other for a long time. To be able to work with Bobby during his site's big anniversary is about as good as it gets. I hope we can do this for a number of the events I have planned in 2025."

"Larry is one of those guys who worked tirelessly over the years doing what he loved and shooting high-quality photographs of race cars," said Bobby Bennett, a drag racing journalist of almost four decades and founder of CompetitionPlus.com. "But his biggest contribution may have been preserving the history of drag racing. That is so valuable to those of us who work daily in chronicling the history of drag racing, I am very honoured to have him working on our team throughout the DI Winter Series and other key events."

The other major component in the tour was a logo. The job went to long time friend Stu Wotipka of Instinctive Drive Creations."I had a thought of doing something with my 1975 Twig Zeigler flip photo that basically started my career. I wasn't sure it could be done, but I'm very happy with what Stu did with it." Swag featuring the logo will be available soon.

Pfister will still be shooting all the major events at his home track Mission Raceway Park, scheduling tour events around the major Mission races. "I want to cover some rather major events at places I've never been to. I'm not getting any younger, I'm healthy, so the time is right to make 2025 my dream year. And it won’t just be photo coverage. As future dates are confirmed, there are plans for a couple of components that will really complete this dream tour".

It will be very interesting to see how this tour develops for Pfister and we can't wait to see what he's able to capture with his trusty Nikon-Nikkor equipment. More news on this adventure as Pfister reports it.

The latest update as of February 10, 2025

The SHOT heard around the drag racing world

I missed this story until earlier today, but watching the video made me think that Top Alcohol Funny Car leaped into the unknown after the "Pirate Ship" Injected Nitro Funny Car of Bartone, Boggs & Bellemeur simply annihilated the (unofficial) records for the class, by a TON!. When the car crossed the Gainesville Raceway finish line on a test run and the scoreboard lit up with a 5.288 - 283.49 result.... what can you say? other than WTF.

Here is the story as posted on Facebook by Drag Illustrated

Reigning NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car world champion team comprised of the Bartone Bros., tuner Steve Boggs and driver Sean Bellemeur sent shockwaves through the sport with the debut of their new Red Line Oil/Roger Dean/Talon Air 2025 Camaro sporting a new injected nitromethane aluminum Hemi.

While testing during a scheduled bracket race at Gainesville (FL) Raceway on Sunday, February 9, Californian Bellemeur clocked the quickest and fastest run ever for an unblown Funny Car at 5.41 at 241 mph and then returned to unleash an astounding 5.288-second blast at 283.49 mph.

The run exceeded the best injected FC numbers set by Mick Steele at 5.45 at 270 mph but annihilated the best performances by any supercharged Alcohol Funny Car by an amazing six-hundredths of a second (Bellemeur's own NHRA world record of 5.352) and over seven mph, (Annie Whiteley's 276.18). While the car was not required to be NHRA legal during testing, it was, nonetheless, the most jaw-dropping performance yet of 2025.

The internet lit up with lots of naysayers questioning the validity of the pass. Some claiming that they weren't running NHRA specs, hadn't passed tech, etc. All of that is sheer B.S. as the team holds themselves to a very high standard as straight up racers that would never cut corners or do anything that wasn't 100% legal. The obvious question that the critics would have to answer - and can't - is why would they run so much quicker and faster than anyone in the history of the class when they obviously know that NHRA will very quickly be making some major rules changes for the class if that pass is repeated at the "Baby Gators" or Gatornationals next month.

It has been posited that the run was made in an attempt to show NHRA that letting A/Funny Cars run in the TA/FC class is like opening Pandora's Box and that nothing good can come of it. If that actually is the case, it's a very expensive way for the "Killer B's" to get the A/FC option struck from the rulebook.... but it is a remote possibility. There are still only a very small handful of racers running the injected nitro option, and before Bellemeur's jaw-dropping effort, Mick "The Real Deal" Steele" has been the most successful, with some 5.40's, including a best of 5.459 in 2023. That's a long way behind Bellemeur's seemingly "out of the box" test pass at Gainesville.

Stay tuned for more developments and internet debates, from the racers and the NHRA. It could be quite an interesting season for th Top Alcohol Funny Car class.

Here's a link to the Drag Illustrated report on the run.

And another link to the video of the run.

LATE Update: Here's the link to a full story about the car on Crew Chief Daily from Drag Illustrated.

The latest update as of February 9, 2025

SCAG Power Equipment PRO Superstar Shootout Eliminations

TOP FUEL

Eliminations kicked off with the #2 (Doug Kalitta) and #3 (Brittany Force) qualifiers matching up. Kalitta left first by two hundredths but Force drove around him on the top end with a winning 3.736 - 333.08 over Kalitta's close 3.768 - 325.37 effort. The margin at the stripe was just .011 of a second. In the next pair, the bottom qualifiers, #7 (Josh Hart) and #8 (Tony Stewart) faced off, and Hart took the early lead with an .051 to .074 reaction time advantage. He started to pull away until Stewart smoked the tires at half track and it became a victory lap for Hart, stopping the timers at 3.725 - 319.67, while Stewart coasted to a losing 4.974 - 143.40 time.

The third pairing of the round saw #1 (Antron Brown) facing #6 (Shawn Reed). They left almost together, but Reed pulled into a slight lead as they passed half track, before Brown smoked the tires and shut off. Red took the winlight with a 3.785 - 326.24, while Brown trailed at 4.769 - 155.68 in the losing effort. The round closed with the most closely matched racers, #4 (Justin Ashley) facing #5 (Shawn Langdon). Ashley left first - as always - with a great .033 r.t. against a very good .050 for Langdon, but the Kalitta team car faltered early and by 660' it was all Ashley. He didn't set the clocks on fire with a slowing 3.943 - 279.78 showing up on the scoreboards, but it was more than enough for the win over Langdon's 8-second effort.

The semifinals paired up Shawn Reed and Brittany Force, and it was all Reed from start, an .042 reaction time advantage, to finish, with a 3.768 - 320.66 for the holeshot win. Force had better incremental times at all points and posted a very good 3.752 - 327.51, but it wasn't enough to make up for the reaction time deficit. The other second round match featured Josh Hart and Justin Ashley. It was almost dead even off the line (.003 advantage to Ashley), but Hart had better numbers going down the track and stopped the clocks first with a 3.721 - 318.77, over Ashley's close 3.767 - 327.59 effort. Hart's speed dropped off when the engine dropped a cylinder just before the finish line.

With his quicker semifinal timeslip, Josh Hart held lane choice for the final round against Shawn Reed. In the early evening, under the Musco lighting, the header flames were wing high and the numbers glowed brightly on the scoreboards, especially for the winning times of Shawn Reed: 3.699 - 330.39. Putting up a valiant effort in a losing cause was Josh Hart, as his 3.724 - 321.37 wasn't far behind. Both drivers had almost identical r.t.'s with Reed's .065 just a tick quicker than Hart's .067 start.

FUNNY CAR

PRO STOCK

The latest update as of February 7, 2025

SCAG Power Equipment PRO Superstar Shootout Qaulifying

We're finished day four of the Superstar Shootout and we've seen some changes from the original lineup of racers. Top Fuel dropped from eleven to nine competitors, when the Salinas team (Mike & Jasmine) dropped out. Funny Car ended up with ten drivers when Paul Lee was added to the lineup. Pro Stock saw the biggest change when the announced 14 racers became 18 when qualifying commenced. That made for a full 16-car field which justifies the four rounds of eliminations on the schedule.

After four rounds of qualifying, the Top Fuel field ranged from Antron Brown on top with a tremendous 3.644 - 322.11 run, followed by four others in the 3.60's. The bump spot 3.738- 328.30 was held down by sophomore TF racer Tony Stewart.. On the outside, by just half a tenth was Doug Foley with a strong 3.788 - 289.94. We're still trying to figure out what happened to the Salinas team.

In Funny Car, Austin Prock and the "Prock Rocket" team picked up right where they left off in 2024, bombing the timers with a 3.791 - 331.53 to grab the #1 spot in the field. The next eight cars were all the 3.80's, and even the second alternate, Dave Richards laid down a very strong 3.944 - 320.28 to show that they are ready to be a competitive force this season. The bump spot was held down by the "Speed King" Bob Tasca III with an excellent 3.862 - 333.08. First alternate J.R. Todd, in a Scott Kalitta tribute car turned a best number of 3.895 - 333.33 that would qualify strongly in any 16-car field.

Pro Stock would have had the tightest grouping of e.t.'s if it was an 8-car field; less than four hundredths of a second separated the #1 and #8 qualifiers. Even the full 16-car field showed just an eight hundredths spread, from (surprising!) Cory Reed on top at 6.494 - 209.62, all the way down to Chris McGaha on the bubble at a still very good 6.574 - 209.85 clocking. Of note was Deric Kramer with top speed of qualifying at 211.53 mph.

The chip draw for first round pairings saw some weird positioning, with both Top Fuel and Funny Car having just one "standard" pairing of the #4 & #5 qualifiers facing each other. Reasonably separated were one other pairing, where #1 faced #6, but the other two pairs in both classes matched #2 and #3, and #7 versus #8. Pro Stock was all over the board, with #1 against #10, #11 versus #12, and #14 against #15. The biggest gap in the order was #4 facing #16, and the closest was #7 vs. #9. And the pairings for the second round of eliminations, and the semifinal round for Pro Stock would be more chip draws. It's a gimmick to be sure, but we didn't hear or see any obvious complaints about the randomness of it from the racers.

The latest update as of February 4, 2025

It's going to be a busy weekend of racing

It's already started with a total of four time trial sessions today and tomorrow for the Pro Stock, Funny Car, and Top Fuel racers on the invitation list. There's eleven drivers in each of the fuel classes, and 14 racing in Pro Stock. Top Fuel and Funny Car will run standard 8-car elimination fields, with the three non-qualifying racers in each class facing off in a Top Fuel vs Funny Car consolation match race. The quickest winners of the three pairs in the first round of the match race will meet in the consolation final, running just before the Top Fuel and Funny Car finals. The Pro Stock schedule shows four rounds of eliminations, so it appears that there will be bye runs in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds.

One major difference for the racers will be "chip draws" to determine opponents in all elimination rounds before the finals. Presumably, even the bye runs for Pro Stock will be decided by those draws. That may make it more interesting for the spectators, but will take away some of the incentive to qualify at or near the top of the ladder.

The invitation list on the Shootout website shows only nine racers in each of the fuel classes, but an article about the event on Competition Plus yesterday gave us some updates on the fuel fields. In addition to the nine racers listed on the PRO Superstar Shootout website, the article shows Mike and Jasmine Salinas as part of the Top Fuel field.

On the Funny Car side, there's nothing in the article detailing the two extra drivers, other than to say "none of them are Superstar Shootout 'rookies' other than Jack Beckman". That leaves two of the following four racers to fill the field. Cruz Pedregon, Blake Alexander, Paul Lee, and Alexis DeJoria. We can eliminate Alexander as he has moved on from the Jim Head team and will be driving part-time with Chad Green. That leaves three racers that could possibly fill the two remaining spots, but I'm not going to speculate on who they may be.

The biggest surprise among the non-invited are Steve Torrence and Clay Millican in Top Fuel. There are rumours that the Torrence team (Steve & Billy) will either be a one-car team in 2025, or race a limited schedule, but Millican is a real surprise. He's a social media superstar, has a hard running car, and is very popular. Another oddity, in my estimation is the 14-car Pro Stock elimination field. The promoters should have cut the numbers back to something closer to what was needed for an 8-car field, or added a few more to make it a full 16-car show. Two of the 2024 Top Ten Pro Stock competitors were left out (Matt Hartford and Jerry Tucker), and six racers from outside the Top Ten are on the invite list.

We're not sure if we'll see any results from the "private testing" today and tomorrow, but when the broadcast starts streaming on Thursday morning, we'll hopefully be able to fill in all the blanks in our notebooks. Stay tuned for updates on the event as they happen.

The March Meet is barely a month away, but the dust will be blown off Famoso Dragstrip on Saturday as an open test session will be running. While it's primarily catering to the fuel racers that will be running the March Meet, it is open to all race teams, whether they are competing in March or just wanting to do some testing. The March Meet Event Page is up and accepting entries, selling tickets, and providing lots of information about one of the most iconic drag races in the history of the sport.

At this point it doesn't appear that Northern Thunder will have any photographers on hand for the event, but as with all things around here, that might be subject to change. And as always: stay tuned!

The latest update as of February 3, 2025

A little more IHRA News

The latest news out of the newly rejuvenated International Hot Rod Association is the hiring of Christian Byrd as the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships. With an extensive sports marketing background, which included the mentorship of his late father, Jeff Byrd, who was heavily involved in bringing the R.J. Reynolds (Winston) sponsorships to the IHRA, and later NHRA. Christian's latest motorsports position was as General Manager of zMax Dragway.

At this point we're not sure exactly what his duties will entail, but the media release announcing his hiring closed with the following statement from Mr. Byrd. "We need to make things cost-effective for our families. We need to make it cost-effective for racers. We need the right people in the room. The IHRA is well on its way to doing that."

Other developments at IHRA include the shift of Darlington Dragway (Huntsville, SC) and Wichita Raceway Park (Wichita Falls, TX) from IHRA sanction to the NHRA. While the 1/8-th mile track in Texas is not that significant of a move, the loss of "Legendary" Darlington is a definite loss to the IHRA's roster of tracks. As to how this might affect their plans for a 10-event Nitro Jam season in 2025, that remains to be seen. More news on the "New" IHRA when it happens.

The 2025 Drag Racing Season is underway!

Despite the winter weather covering many parts of North America, there's already one major doorslammer event in the books, and later this week a second, and even bigger, event is on tap at the winter racing capital of Bradenton, FL. Two weeks ago, the Drag Illustrated Winter Series had it's second of three events at Bradenton, with the U.S. Street Nationals. To say it was a very competitive event is a major understatement, as the 32-car Outlaw Pro Mod qualified field was led by Ken Quartuccio's very quick 3.572 pass going into the final qualifying session.

That number held up until one of the last cars down the track, the '69 Camaro of defending champion Mark Micke snatched away the #1 position with a very quick and extremely fast 3.567 - 219.36 pass. At the other end of the field, the bump spot was held down by Matt Dietsch at a very respectable 3.655. Eliminations were unpredictable as some of the higher qualified cars fell early with either too much traction - wheelstands - or severe tire shake. And the field was peppered with some big names, including the 2024 NHRA Top Fuel champion, Antron Brown, perennial NHRA Pro Mod stars Stevie "Fast" Jackson and Lyle Barnett, and No Prep Kings standout Kye Kelley.

After four rounds of intense competition, #2 qualifier Ken Quartuccio faced off against Lyle Barnett and took the $75,000 win with a great 3.586 - 208.62 pass, initiated with an .001 reaction time. Falling just short with an excellent pass of 3.608 - 207.62 was Barnett, who was close, but just not close enough.

The latest update as of January 27, 2025

Anything happen while we were away?

IHRA Ch-ch-ch-anges

It's been a very busy time at IHRA headquarters over the past few months. Starting with the surprising announcement of Kenny Nowling (ex-ADRL head honcho) as the new President of the association on October 23, 2024. Less than two months later, at the PRI (Performance Racing Industry) show, it was announced that Darryl Cuttell had become the new owner of IHRA, after purchasing it from Larry Jeffers. Simultaneously, the announcement of three Nitro Jam races, with Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Mod, and Mountain Motor Pro Stock classes headlining the events in 2025.

Then in the first week of January, at an NFL game in Cincinatti, a big half-time announcement was made that TEN Nitro Jam events would be run this year. Dates and locations to be announced soon. Additional classes were added to the Nitro Jam series at that time, including Pro Stock, Pro Stock Motorcycle, Top Fuel Motorcycle, and Nitro Harley. No word yet on purse sizes but they are promised to be susbstantial, and ZERO entry fees for Pro racers in 2025.

Less than a week later the executive suite at IHRA headquarters saw Mr. Nowling parting ways with IHRA with immediate effect. The announcment reads as follows: "This decision underscores IHRA's commitment to prioritizing safety, competition, and integrity in it's operations". One short sentence that on the surface reads like any corporate change of personnel, but the part of that sentence refering to "safety, competition and integrity" speaks volumes.

Then on January 17th, a new CEO Alex Roach and new President Rich Schaefer (ex-NHRA Division Two Director) were announced in a glowing media release by Jeff Birchfield, director of IHRA communications. The release closed with this sentence: As with anything, this is ever evolving but EXCITING TIMES AHEAD!.

Wait, there's more: as last Thursday (January 24th), ex-NHRA head announcer, Alan Rinehart was hired as Vice-President of Racing Operations. After failing to reach an agreement on a contract extension with NHRA, Rinehart very quickly landed on his feet at IHRA.

All we're waiting for now is the 2025 Nitro Jam schedule. It should be interesting. A quick check of the track roster of IHRA shows a total of 50 facilities, only 15 of which are quarter-mile and only 13 of them on the mainland of the United States. None of them are near a major population center, and only a few have anything near national event capabilities. That means: concrete guardwalls, adequate shutdown areas, large enough pit areas, and grandstands that can accomodate a serious number of spectators.

The latest update as of January 20, 2025

Sunset at Sunset Point, Spirit Bay, BC

Since we got back from Mexico, the skies have been mostly clear, the winds light, and the temperatures bordering on freezing, but when you see a sunset like this.... there's no wondering why we live here

The latest update as of January 2, 2025

Hasta La Vista!

As reported on the home page, we're taking a short winter break to soak up as much sun as we can on the East Coast of Mexico, Akumal Bay to be precise. We'll be back at the drag racing thing later in the month, catching up on and filling in the blanks on as much of the previous years coverage as we can before the 2025 tsunami of stories and photos start filling up in the in-box. Until then, stay safe, stay warm, and enjoy life.

The latest update as of November 19, 2024

BOMB CYCLONE expected to hit Vancouver Island Tuesday afternoon

We've lashed down all the deck furniture, locked all the windows, got out all the candles and lamps, and we're ready for the worst that Mother Nature can throw at us. The wind gusts are forecast to exceed 90 kmh (60 mph) this afternoon and evening, and not abate until well into Wednesday. We're certain that the power is going out within the next few hours so there won't be any updates at Northern Thunder for at least the next day or two. Thankfully, we have a propane fireplace and cooktop so we can cook and stay warm. The next update will be when we resume normal service.

To see previous updates, go to the What's Old page

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